Press Conference, Genoa Social Forum. Brutality. UK Indymedia reporter in coma

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Press Conference, GSF, 22 July 2001
by IMC reporter 11:03pm Sun Jul 22 \'01 (Modified on 1:38am Mon Jul 23 \'01)
http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6282

Press connference by the Genoa Social Forum 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.
live from the press conference of gsf

testimonial: a lawyer

the lawyer is reading a comunique. he said his group was there to be certain that rights of protester were
granted. he describe the demos as great. he is protesting against the fact that the lawyers were not allowed inside the school. he said that the lawyers used 3 computers in the indymedia room. he said after police raid their computers were broken and data stolen. he said that among stolen data were the names of all lawyers and all transcripts of reports the lawyers collected.

coordinator of medical service

we decided to publicly state all we saw during the demo. what we saw before last night was nothing compared to the raid. we were inside school. we were preparing reports; all was quiet. police came in and started to beat everyone that was around the school. police entered. police started beating people inside. we were shocked at the screams we heard. police arrived in medical room. they checked our papers. when they let us go after an our [HOUR?] we discovered that the lawyers\' pc\'s were raided. then ambulances arrived. we were prevented from checking the status of anyone. when police left we entered the building. all the building was covered in blood. we were slipping in the blood stains when entering in school. we walked around the building, slipping in pools of blood. we were the first entering in there, after having being stopped for one hour. the police blitz of yesterday is contrary to a state based upon right and brings us in a climate of terror. we witnessed a beating of a girl in front of our eyes. she had been beaten by police, then stood up to run away, then police ran after her; 4 of them beat her again.

[people are crying at the press conference]

next day. girl is in bad condition.
these cases are documented.
via corridoni. 3 girls sitting on a brick wall. they were grabbed and thrown off the brick wall. a man that was in the courtyard where the girl fell. rescued them and brought them in his house. only then police left.
we had a identifying tag.

we had a truck with red cross painted on. the truck was stopped by police many times during the demo. yesterday a policeman broke the window of our truck and trew a flare (or teargas inside).

[people are crying and clapping hands]

this is for remembering who gave something into what injustice happened.
it wil keep on with media. we will not forget. we will never forget what happened in genoa.

davide ferrari
ferrario
davide ferrario is a film director
yesterday about 4 pm near kennedy square i saw policemen masked. they had their face hidden. i witnessed collaborators of police. they were speaking with other policemen. it was clear to all that among the cops that came yesterday, one of them was wearing one of our stopg8 t-shirt.

indymedia is speaking now

freedom of expression and of comunication has been negated in last days.
(indymedia is speaking english.) the journalist from uk is in a coma. an indymedia activist, journalist from uk is now in coma, in hospital, after surgery for perforation of lungs.

a person from network against g8
we state our solidarity with him and hope he\'ll come back in next hours.
violence begun when barriers were erected blocking freedom of genoa citizens.
the greatest part of protester in a civil, non violent manner expressed their dissent.

person from carta paper

in these days we worked in mediacenter.
we will make a formal denounce for what happened yesterday.
two of our journalists that were outside tried to enter to see what was inside.
they were showing their press badge.
the policeman say: \"your pass journalist put in your ass\".
they were invited tu stuff the press badge in their arse.

piero bernocchi? from cobas

this press conference look more like war bulletin (radio conductor).
(cobas) we will speak later of black bloc now we speak of black government.
this government is responsible for what happened here. it is true that carabinieri shot but it is also true that the government is responsible.
(note black in italy is the colour used by fascists).

it is clear that the government wants to cancel all right to protest
now on the black bloc. it is a sign that 3-4000 think of destroying everithing as a sign of protest.
*please* if someone has a clear feed help me translate
at a certain poin this movement has scared someone. \"the world has changed after goeteborg\" at a certain poin this movement has scared someone so they decided to use it instrumentally.

football fans during weekend usually destroy trains and other things but police does not charge them. they do attack protesters. they say that police decided to attack the whole movement; not only the violent ones. the culprit is the government. black block or not we ll be half million next time. next time we will be half a million. (they said 800.000 people connected to the radio stream of radiogap).

casarini talk
luca casarini (white overalls)

the political attack agains us is built on provocation.
gsf must be hit by berlusconi government. we have to break up theyr tring to de-legitimize us. this is justification for tonite attack and all attack we will receive. the photographer who took the pictures we are about to show was attacked by the police this morning. we have seen seattle, prague, goeteborg and now genoa. people that tried to defend themselves from the homicidal fury of police. police killed a person. we asked police not to bring guns. they did and left a corpse. we need to be a multitude to be able to handle this level. berlusconi told \"all is going well\". from tuesday we will be in the streets in whole italy.

casarini finished

a woman is speaking now

we need to ask all the democratic institutions: \"we have to call for all democratic organisatuions to protest for the democracy in this country\". to fight for the future of democracy in italy. government is telling a bunch of lies. we want the truth.
\"we have to find the truth on what happened\". the gov is lying now. \"we want a parlamentary inquiry commission\".

\"they came to steal our documents\". we have nothing to hide.

this movement will go on anyway. people have come even despite all the violence. \"yesterday we made it\".
and provocation of the police after the carlo\'s death we thought to stop demonstrations, but we decided to go on\".
\"we made it\" 1000s of people has come here. yesterday we brought the great strenghth of mass participation. what happened inside the school is something we thought we had seen only in south america, in dictatorhips.
during this year b4 genoa they tried with all measures to divide us.
(the woman speaking now is from arci). what they are really scared off is uor unity and we have to remain united. we must unite.
a comrade from radio gap has been beaten by the police. he is now in hospital. a journalist has been beaten while working. he showed his regular pass and was beaten by opolice. 12.20 sunday: the police came in our press conference. this morning at 0,20 the poliice irrupted at the imc and gsf headquarters. eyewitness can tell all that happened. people beaten violently. people screaming. blood everywhere. 5 policemen came in the radio (station) with sticks. they said they didnt need any official permission. the police came in without any permission from the magistrate. (they used again article 41 - anti-terrorism law that say if u have great suspect in bombers u can make arrest without proof). i hope the criminal facts speak for themselves.

agnoleto now
(this was massino from radio gap)
peppe de cristofaro (young communists?).
[there was confusion about who was speaking here, but it was believed to be cristofaro].

he said the g8 has now another death in its backyard. one more in a list of millions. now this movement scares the g8. for this reason they are tring to put us versus a higher level of violence. this movement can win. the struggle its a huge movement.
there are many ways to fight but we\'ll not stop, what\'s gone on in genoa will give us more strength. we will fight globalization more and more.

tu tu tu
next in bologna
(stream is over)

-- end of Press Conference report on Italy Indymedia site ---

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Latest reports of July 22, 2001 Italy Indymedia and Genoa Social Forum raid, brutality, injuries, torture, arrests. LINKS.
http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=102089