IMC PRESS RELEASE: RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA

The Independent Media Center Network (IMC) (http://www.indymedia.org) demands that independent journalism and journalists be protected from state repression. We also demand this incident of grave repression be given the full investigation and scrutiny that it deserves. Reports indicate that black clad provocateurs were working in conjunction with Italian Military Police in a vicious attack on peaceful organizers.

MIDNIGHT RAID IN GENOA

On early Sunday morning, Italian Police stormed the IMC press office armed with tear gas and batons. Italian military police and unknown provocateurs simultaneously raided the school building across the street that has hosted various groups participating in the Genoa Social Forum (GSF) (http://www.genoa-g8.org/).

Persons in the IMC at the time of the raid were forced to stand against the wall with their hands up while police searched equipment and personal effects. Reports vary on the number of injuries sustained by IMC staff. IMC-Italia reports that one IMC reporter from the UK is hospitalized with serious injuries from the attacks. Materials reportedly seized during the raid include audio mini disks, video tapes and computer hard drives. Other reports allege that telecommunications equipment was damaged and/or destroyed during the raid. In the same building, the police also raided the Radio Gap radio station and forced it off the air for a short time.

The neighboring school building hosting GSF organizers was where the worst violence occurred. Eyewitnesses claim that around 50 black clad provocateurs first entered the street in front of the school overturning dumpsters and creating chaos. They then removed their black sweatshirts and entered the school and began beating those inside indiscriminately; "most of the most savage beatings were again not done by uniformed police but by characters dressed in jeans and bandanas and helmets with 'police' written on their T-shirts...." Hundreds of Italian police sealed off the street and a helicopter flew low overhead as if on a military operation. Press in attendance was kept back at a distance.

Many individuals were awoken from their sleep and lined up along walls, hands over heads. The ensuing brutal assault lasted over 45 minutes... Horrible screams from the building could be heard on the streets below. Afterwards, the floors and walls were covered in blood. Twenty wounded were carried out, many on stretchers, and three were unconscious (according to BBC reporter Bill Hayton who was present during the raid). The injured were taken to ambulances that arrived with the police; reports today indicate over 50 injured. Police claimed to have authority to enter and search the building for weapons under Article 41 (an anti-terrorist act). Later an Italian MP, Luisa Morgantini, arrived and told the police they had no such authority since the schools resided on state-owned property, it was at this point the Police and provocateurs left the building.

The Genoa Social Forum held a press conference Sunday morning concerning the details of the raid. (see http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6282). Volunteer lawyers for activists report that computers were destroyed and that police stole information during the raid that related to their organizational work, including the transcripts of testimonies. Materials were also confiscated from the IMC offices that might have provided legal documentation of police abuses in the preceding days. One lawyer stated, "The police blitz is contrary to a state based upon rights and brings in a climate of terror."

Throughout the day Sunday , the IMC newswire contained reports of continued police beatings of activists in Genoa, both in the streets and in the jails... Reports indicate that many injured demonstrators are fearful to seek treatment in hospitals since the police have been removing people with unexplained wounds and taking them to jail. At present over 500 hundred people are missing and unaccounted for.

A full investigation is called for, concerning the use of violent provocateurs by police. Reports all weekend in Genoa have asserted that much of the property destruction and violent provocations were carried out by individuals apparently working in conjunction with police and dressed like black clad anarchists. Similar reports have surfaced in past demonstrations in Prague, Quebec and elsewhere. This disturbing claim and the subsequent violence and closing of the GSF and IMC demand full attention.

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IMC BACKGROUND: A FREE PRESS NETWORK

The IMCs, or Indymedia, are a network of independent media organizations and hundreds of individual journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage.

Indymedia is a democratic media outlet with the mission to create radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth. The first IMC was initiated in Seattle, in the fall of 1999, during the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization. The center was created to ensure that diverse voices could be heard with a clarity and focus beyond the usual chatter of the commercial media soundbite.

The Indymedia website is an unusual phenomenon in cyberspace: visited by literally millions, the network has led to the creation of over fifty collaborative sites in cities all over the world.

For people in dozens of countries, indymedia.org is news: news that they can rely on, news that does not have the bias of information/entertainment corporations who have a stake in maintaining the status quo. The open publishing software of the web site enables anyone with a basic computer and modem to post immediately on the news wire, without an intervening editor. Indymedia has created a model for collaborative work that makes a real difference. The IMC organizes collaborations between various types of media (print, photo, video, radio and internet) and between diverse organizations and individuals. The IMCs are non-hierarchical in nature. The decisionmaking is by consensus and all participants, including those who can freely post on the newswire from home, are themselves empowered.

The growing global justice movement, which is against corporate control of globalization and for a more democratic and inclusive process of setting the world's priorities and allocation of resources, has depended on, and benefitted from, the IMCs to provide breaking and unfiltered coverage of diverse views, conferences, and demonstrations.

HISTORY OF STATE SUPPRESSION OF IMC AND THE FUTURE

The recent raid on the Indymedia Center in Genoa is the latest in a series of intimidations and threats to this movement of independent media centers.

As the Indymedia movement has grown, it has been subject to increasing repression. From the first days in Seattle, when the IMC received a tear gas attack, there have been indications that authorities identified the IMC movement as a target to intimidate and silence.

At the IMC in LA during the August 2000 Democratic National Convention, a police raid closed down the satellite van that was scheduled to uplink live IMC television to a national grassroots community television network. In Prague, the Czech police raided the IMC offices, harassing and intimidating journalists and others. During the days preceding the Bush inauguration, DC police sent spy/provocateur agents to IMC-DC meetings.

More recently, during the FTAA protests, the FBI visited the Seattle IMC with a request for all computer logs and a gag-order injunction demanding that no news of the request be made public on the net. The IMC in Quebec also suffered police harassment and an attack in which tear gas was fired into the center. Less than a month later, shortly after the Cincinnati uprising over police brutality last spring, police served an order on a coordinator at the Ohio Valley IMC, also requesting records and tape logs and to appear before a Grand Jury.

The IMC gained a victory for the independent press community when these injunctions were withdrawn by the FBI after The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center intervened to support the IMCs.

The IMC global network will continue to fight hard to protect the rights of independent journalists around the world and to ensure that the voices of our many diverse communities are accurately and respectfully covered and made available to the rest of the world. As stated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to the freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

CONTINUING IMC COVERAGE

For ongoing coverage of the Genoa protests, stay tuned to IMC-Italia
http://italia.indymedia.org, and global IMC, http://www.indymedia..org.

Eyewitness accounts of the IMC and GSF raids.
http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=102064
http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=8871

An IMC NEWS BLAST will be released Tuesday for summary, news and updates on the protests in Genoa. Here's the link to the first one: http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-news/2001-July/000228.html.

Also see:
Indymedia radio broadcasts: http://radio.indymedia.org/
Indymedia print summaries (in distributable newsletter/flier format): http://print.indymedia.org
IMC sites are providing detailed coverage include (see global website Left column for links): France, UK, Belgium, Barcelona, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, IMC-Sweden, Brasil, Argentina, Chicago, and New York City.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)