Police
and Paramilitary Brutalization of Protestors at Genoa G8 summit
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July
20th-22nd 2001 has seen the worst police brutality on peaceful demonstrators
in the European Union this century. I have compiled various short lived headlines on one particularly brutal attack on the Headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum, the umbrella group in charge of peaceful demonstration at the Genoa summit. This attack came in the dead of night, and consisted of a raid on the Independent Media Centre, the G.S.F. and a related building (an old school which was empty and undergoing building work and which was granted for use by the peaceful protestors with whom the G.S.F. associate.) HERE you will find a recording the the Live Webcast of GAP Radio taking place at the time of the police raid on the Independent Media Centre. Whilst at the centre police confiscated and destroyed electronic and video evidence of activities at the protests. The school across the road was raided shortly after the police entered the Independent Media Centre. Police severely beat around 50 of the sleeping peaceful protestors after lining them up, and the walls and floors were covered in blood after the incident. Most were hospitalised, and some have not come out of coma at the time of compiling this page (23rd July 2001). Two of the people beaten at the school were members of the non-violent group "Globalise Resistance", and the are described thus: Eye witness accounts of the raid were available at many mainstream media sites as well as alternative sources. Reports: Indymedia
story of the raid The Guardian Reports on the incident: "Police hit hard at core of dissent" "Riots force a review of summits" The raid on the Genoa Social Forum and surrounding buildings is believed to have been a response by police to reports that various groups were in possession of documentary evidence of "infiltrators" and undercover police being the cause of some of the troubles in Genoa. Owing to the intimidation and physical condition of the reporters and protestors and confiscation and destruction of much of this evidence, little of the information has emerged so far.
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Essential resource: Other resources of interest: |