On the 15th and 16th of March 2002 the European Council Summit will take place in Barcelona as part of the Spanish Presidency of the European Economic Union (EEU).
The European Council is made up of the heads of state or government of the fifteen member states of the EEU. The Council regulates the political life and the development of the Union. Its remit includes:
- To define and promote the general political orientation of the EEU
- To coordinate, arbitrate and resolve difficult issues
- Foreign policy and security for the European Union
- Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters
- Coordination of economic, monetary and employment policies.

"Our" more than hated Spanish president, Jose Maria Aznar, has already announced the objectives of his presidency of the European Council: more market and more security, liberalisation and privatisation, and, reading between the lines, a climate of violence and repression.
Continuing with a policy that they have been labouring for over ten years, the EEU is dedicated to clearing the obstacles in the way of what they call (although we don't believe them) the unstoppable and ferocious advance of the new world order, the dictatorship of economic globalisation. The UEE faithfully follows the dictates of the IMF, WTO and World Bank, financial structures which commercialise our time, space, energy and feelings, submitting the planet and those who inhabit it, to the misery of over exploitation, amid wars and more wars of high medium and low intensity.
Economic imperialism, believing it has everything nicely tied up in an empty sack of democracy and justice, declares war on those who shout with dissident voices at those in power, that money is not more important than people nor the environs in which they survive.

They create a state of emergency, sound a social alarm, launch criminalisation campaigns, hoping to turn everyone into controllable beings, the ultimate totalitarian dream. But here we are again. those of us who plan to turn the 15th and 16th of March into two more days in which we get up to struggle and return to bed with combatant dreams. We are among those people who have suffered and continue to suffer identification, arrest, imprisonment and aggression in our daily lives demonstrating that another world is possible (or not). While they dumb us down, one day calling us idealists, the next alternative, later anti-system, then anti-globalisation radicals and finally terrorists.
We are who we are, some of those who were here yesterday, more came to day and we hope to arrive at tomorrow, those who live a daily struggle, real and committed, not a sudden "counter summit" and not under any label created by those in power. We don't see the 15th and 16th of March as a one off response, but we will come out onto the streets, as we do every day (though they want us to be invisible) in a direct and frontal confrontation to free our lives from murderous capitalism, agitating their spaces and their consciences.

We are making an international call to take part in the protests that will take place in Barcelona to demonstrate once again that the European governing classes are no more than organised criminals and white-glove thieves, and that the only thing uniting them is money and their desire for power and control.

WHAT THEY CALL PEACE IS ANOTHER FORM OF DEATH.

LEGAL INFORMATION:

1. INFORMATION ABOUT BORDERS AND ENTRANCE INTO THE SPANISH STATE:
-The general principle is that foreigners from the European Union have the right of free circulation, residence and work in whatever country of the European Union, but they have to show their ID or passport which shows their nationality while crossing the border. -For reasons of public order, public security or public health they can prohibit the entrance of a person into the Spanish state. In theory, the penal history of a person doesn't give sufficient motive to prohibit the entrance, but this theoretically. In practice, public order is an indetermined juridical concept which can be aplicated arbitrarily. If your entrance is negated you have the right to appeal against this measure at the Tribune in Strasbourg. The days before the top a supportgroup against repression will be formed at the border. The contacttelephone is: 626938531

2. BEFORE GOING TO A DEMONSTRATION:
-Inform yourself about the route.
-Empty your pockets. Take along a handy telephone number and address and your ID card or passport.
-It is advisable to wear discrete clothes and shoes that allow you to run.

3. AT A DEMONSTRATION:
Functioning of the police:
-Teargases aren't usually used but they might be.
-The police have guns but no dogs.
-The way they disperse demonstrations is to use rubber bullets and with direct charges using sticks.
-Massive arrests aren't usual. They usually arrest lost activists or small groups once the demonstration has dispersed itself. Therefor it is important not to leave alone nor to stay where the demonstration took place.
-They can close in on you in a street with few exits. It is important not to stay at the same place for a long time.
-There is quite a lot of secret police. They also arrest, so be careful with people that you don't know. Advises for a demonstration (there are a lot of different kinds of demonstrations, here we are refering to the ones that could produce police charges):
-In tense situations it is important to avoid general dispersals. We are stronger together than dispersed.
-If you want to leave the demonstration don't do so on your own. Leave in a group with precautions and calmness.
-Go as far away as possible and don't return to the place of the demonstration until hours after it has finished.
-Remove everything that could prove that you have participated in the demonstration.
-It is important to go to the demonstration in a group. Agree on a meeting-point with the group (far away of the manifestation) to meet after the demonstration and check that nobody is missing.
-If somebody is missing or you have seen an arrest call the legal support telephone of the demonstration. Avoid overreacting and take care that the information that you give is correct.

4. IN CASE OF AN IDENTIFICATION:
-Only police corps can demand documentation. The private security guards (e.g. like the ones in the metro) can hold you back until a police officer comes. If they request your documentation you have to show it.
-It is important to have ID or a passport on you most of all because if they stop you to identify you and you don't they can take you to the police station to verify your dates.

5. IN CASE OF ARRESTS:
If they arrest you:
-The maximum time that an arrest can take is 72 hours.
-Once you are arrested, at the police station, they will give you a paper that tells you your rights:
· You have the right to communicate your arrest to a person. You give them the phone number and they call.
· You have the right to a lawyer. You can choose one of your confidence (you just have to give them the name and surname and they look for them) or they give you a legal aid lawyer. The intention is to have a co-ordination with the legal aid lawyers these days. · You have the right to a medical exam. It is important to insist on this if you have a wound or injury as it will allow you to denounce this afterwards. Once you are free it is good to go to another doctor to have another viewpoint which will give the denouncement more validity.
· You have the right not to undress yourself, as this is only obligatory when you get arrested for drugs.
· If you are a foreigner you have the right to a translator and that they inform your consulate.
-Never declare at a police station, only do so in front of a judge. There you will be given time to speak a bit with your lawyer, to know how things are and to calm yourself. The police might also pressure you and manipulate your declaration.
-Don't touch anything that they show you at the police station. They can use it later as a proof against you.
-There exists a legislation of exception: the antiterrorist-legislation, which can only be applied with the order of a judge of the 'Audiencia Nacional'. This allows an arrest up to 5 days without the right to a phone call and to choose a lawyer. It has been widely criticised as a cover-up of maltreatments. We don't think that they will make use of it. If there are arrests:
-Get information on how many arrests have taken place and who the arrested people are (names and surnames) and call the legal support phone or the official meeting-points.
-It is important to organise protests against the arrests.
-It is important that if there are people from other countries still arrested after the top has finished that a few people from every country stay to help with the legal work.

6. ARRESTS OF FOREIGNERS FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION:
-If you are a foreigner and they arrest you, your rights are the same as the ones we explained before. But a judicial proces of inernation or expulsion can also be initiated.
-Internation: Can take up to 40 days, until the question of what to do with the internated person is resolved. A judge has to authorize this.
-Expulsion: The police hands in the proposal and the delegation of the government in Barcelona decides.

7. EXISTING OFFENCES ARE:
-Except for the 'normal ones' of assault, public disorder, disobedience, damage and injuries.
-The offence of taking part at an illegal demonstration or an illicit association.
-The offence of squatting public buildings.  In some summits there have been problems with the mobile phones. It's possible that the same will happen to us here. TELEPHONE LEGAL SUPPORT GROUP: 93 4426968 For foreigners: 696047917
HEALTH INFORMATION PREVENTION:
-Don't go in bad physical and mental conditions.
-Bring with you all that you might need for personal healthreasons.
IN CASE YOU ARE INJURED:
-Don't try to cure yourself on the street, go to the closest medical service.
-Where they attend you, ask for the juridical report (at the hospitals they send them directly to the judge). It is important that you have a copy.
-At the following phonenumber you can contact the healthgroup in case you need information about an injured person: 605137349 IN CASE OF ARREST:
-If necessary ask to see a doctor. You have the right to be assisted.
-Ask for the medical report once you have been assisted.
-When leaving the policestation go to another doctor to be revised again and get another report.