IMC REPORT | G8 What Really Happened?

IMC NEWS BLAST | Tuesday, July 24, 2001

GENOA G8: What happened?


A compilation of breaking stories, photos, video, and sound from the Independent Media Center network, http://www.indymedia.org. (Links to various sources of IMC coverage of Genoa G8 are at end of this blast.)

by Indymedia News Blast Team


CONTENTS
-----------------
A. SUMMARY OF EVENTS
B. ACCOUNTS AND REPORTS
C. BACKGROUND AND COMMENTARIES
D. PHOTOS AND VIDEO
E. AUDIO
F. PRINT
G. THE GENOA SOCIAL FORUM (GSF)
H. SELECTED ALTERNATIVE PRESS LINKS
I. CONTINUING IMC COVERAGE


A. SUMMARY OF EVENTS

Over 200,000 people converged on Genoa, Italy this past weekend to express dissent against the closed meetings of the Group of 8 and the policies they espouse and to discuss alternatives to the current undemocratic nature of global social and economic planning. The \'G8\' - leaders of the world\'s most economically powerful countries - meet yearly to discuss general international policy directions.

Solidarity demonstrations against the G8 summit and the police violence that has characterized it, have been organized worldwide in Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Bologna, Boston, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Finland, Greece, Helsinki, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Madison, WI, Manchester, Melbourne, Miami, Milan, Montreal, Naperville, IL, New York, Oslo, Paris, Peru, Philadelphia, Portland, Rome, Salzburg, São Paulo, San Francisco/Berkeley, Stockholm, Sydney, Toronto, Turkey, Urbana, IL, Vancouver, Vienna, and Washington DC and in many other cities in Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, and elsewhere. A call for further solidarity protests is here: http://www.geocities.com/protest666/protest.htm and listing of some of the protests here: http://www.geocities.com/protest666/planned_actions.htm

Please see IMC NEWS BLAST on Genoa from Saturday, July 21, for earlier, additional coverage focusing on events from July 19 and 20, Thursday and Friday last week: http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4526.

Another IMC NEWS BLAST will be prepared later this week to summarize news on emerging stories, including details of the Sunday morning raid, jail situation, and solidarity protests.


B. ACCOUNTS AND REPORTS

Violence against protesters in Genoa continued to escalate on Sunday, July 22. Numerous personal accounts of demonstrators being gassed, chased through the streets and beaten by police, despite participating only in non-violent marches, fill the newswires. Seemingly no one was immune; reports came of beatings of women and men, young and old alike. An IMC newswire story Monday noted that a confirmed 500 protesters remained missing.

Reports are coming in of very bad treatment of protesters in jails. Sunday, in the early morning hours, police carried out a vicious raid against the GSF offices (Genoa Social Forum, www.genoa-g8.org), the Italy IMC and the protest legal offices, with extremely brutal actions directed at sleeping protesters in the GSF. Reports have come in of over 70 injuries in this assault alone and of as many as 26 of these people taken to the hospital after being severely beaten. Amnesty International is investigating human rights violations.

1. FROM JUNE IN GENOA (English)
by June Terpstra
Eyewitness accounts from Italian-American June C. Terpstra. This series of stories from streets of Genoa are full of color, front line reporting, critical insight, and revolutionary passion.
7/24: Visions of Liberation and Love: Real Revolutionaries:
http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3708
7/23: http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3662
7/21: http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3567
7/20, late: http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3563
7/20: http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3554
7/19: http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3514
7/18: http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3500

2. REPORT ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE JAILS AND POLICE STATIONS IN GENOVA (English)
http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54924
by Pet Kuna 2:06am Tue Jul 24 \'01
From article: "On monday, july 23rd, a group of media activists were allowed to visit some of the Imprisoned in the jails and prisons in Genova. Report from the jail "Vercelli": The media activists could speak to three women, five minutes each. The women declared that they all have been beaten, when they were arrested and/or in jail/at the police station. The wounds at their heads and in the faces emphazised the reports. The situation of the men seems to be much more serious. The three women told that they could hear the men beeing tortured and "punished" throughout the whole night."

3. RESPONSE TO POLICE RAID ON GENOA SOCIAL FORUM AND IMC ITALIA OFFICES (English)
by by IMC Ad Hoc Genoa Solidarity Committee
http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=7092
This offers a summary of the brutal raid of GSF offices and the destruction confiscation of property at the IMC press offices. Mission and nature of IMC are discussed. History of state attempts to suppress IMC and some of IMC successes are summarized.

4. GSF PRESS CONFERENCE, GSF, 22 JULY 2001 (English)
by IMC reporter 11:03pm Sun Jul 22 \'01
http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6282
http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54549
Notes from press conference by the Genoa Social Forum, Sunday, July 22, 2001. The conference was broadcast live by RadioGap and simultaneously translated by several people from Italian to English in an irc chat room.

5. HORRIFIC RAID ON GSF AND IMC GENOA: REPORT (English)
by IMC reporter on scene 6:29am Sun Jul 22 \'01 http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5539
From this article about the GSF building raid, "Later after more arrests in the street the police and fleet of ambulances departed, ... [we gained] access to the building. Inside the sight was sickening. There was thick dark blood all up the walls, over the floor and at the bottom of stairs. It looked like several people had been beaten while on the ground from the blood patters low down on the walls. The scene was horrible. Even the ambulance staff were obviously shocked. ... The local media and other reports have said police where there searching for weapons or drugs. No, it is obvious why they were here. The testimonies of people in both buildings, the blood on the street and inside the school and the number seriously injured in this so called search tells the true story." (Followed by forty comments after the article.)
Brian offers this report of raid on Monday: http://italia.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6869

6. GENOA. MANY EYEWITNESS REPORTS FOR POLICE RAID OF IMC ITALIA GSF
by Independent Media SF. July 21 2001, Sat, 8:39pm
http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=102064
This article offers list of eyewitness reports of July 22, 2001 police raid (around midnight) on Italy Indymedia Center and also other Genoa Social Forum buildings nearby and across the street in Genoa, Italy.

7. STARHAWK\'S REPORTS (English)
by Starhawk
second report. http://vancouver.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2587
first report. http://vancouver.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2576
Starhawk is a noted author and organizer who was in IMC offices near the time of the raid.

8. FATHER OF DEAD PROTESTER \'SORRY\' FOR POLICEMAN (English)
by by Matthew Campbell and John Follain, London 1:40pm Sun Jul 22 \'01
http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54540
This article shares the reaction of parent\'s of Carlo Giuliani to death of their son, reactions of protesters, and summarizes some of events of Saturday.

9. REPORT FROM BLACK ACTION 7/20 (English)
http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4636
by alien8 2:19pm Sat Jul 21 \'01
During the past two days, the expression "Black Block" has been linked to mindless destruction, splits in the movement, and even "agents provocateurs". This is a report of a Black Block demo early on Friday, July 20th, which was part of the numerous attempts to breach the red zone.
(Followed by 29 comments after story.)

10. G8 MEDIA WATCH
http://www.indymedia.org/feature.php3?category=NEWS&feature_id=G8-MediaWatch
Seeing what the corporate media covers...


C. BACKGROUND AND COMMENTARIES

Some writers in the movement see Genoa as a crossroads for the alternative globalization movement, facing fragmentation from internal differences or increasing influence in challenging global forces of domination. Although most reports from the corporate media focus on the violence, some have begun to consider the movement\'s positions and question the legitimacy of the extensive, repressive police build-ups in response to popular protest.

1. DON\'T LET THEM REVERSE OUR MOMENTUM
Posted by Aggie, Written by Michael Albert
http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6967
"We must attract and sustain ever wider and more lasting support. Our demonstrations must include so many people, with so many backgrounds, from so many parts of society and so many societies, that the effect of elites utilizing wild and intimidating repression will not be to diminish our size and capacity, but to enlarge both. We must make Bush and Berlusconi\'s favored tactics benefit us, not them. That is the road to victory."

2. FROM SEATTLE TO GENOA AND BEYOND
by Lauren Langman 9:16pm Mon Jul 23 \'01
http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=7023
Lauren Langman shares insights from his study of the growing alternative globalization movement. He is a Professor of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago. He is also chair of the Marxist Section of the American Sociological Association, co-moderator of the Progressive Sociology Network, past organizer of several Radical Scholar\'s Conferences, author of a number of papers on the alternative globalization movement, and currently co-editing a book on same.

3. THE ROAD FROM GENOA: WHERE TO NOW? (English)
by workers power global 7:41pm Sun Jul 22 \'01
http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=54617
They write,