From: "Johannes Schneider" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 16:16:27 +0200 To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [R-G] Fw: WSJ on Genoa > Wall Street Journal - August 6, 2001 > > G-8 Protesters Say They Were Beaten, > Deprived of Rights by Police in Italy > > By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and IAN JOHNSON > Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL > > Just before midnight on July 21, Miriam Heigl, a political-science > student from Munich, was figuring out a way to get home after three > days protesting the Group of Eight summit in the Italian city of > Genoa. > > As she scanned train schedules posted in the Armando Diaz school > complex, some 70 members of an Italian SWAT team smashed through the > front door, wielding truncheons and shields, their faces covered with > blue and red handkerchiefs. Ms. Heigl and about 30 others were > arrested and taken to a police barracks, where the 25-year-old says > she was made to strip, humiliated and deprived of basic civil > liberties. > > Hospital records show that 61 others in the school fared worse -- > they ended up requiring treatment for injuries. "All I remember is > being hit on the head with a truncheon right away," says Melanie > Jonasch, a 28-year-old archeology student from Berlin, "and then I > woke up here" -- in a Genoese hospital, where she has had surgery for > a broken mastoid bone behind her left ear. > > To millions world-wide, the Genoa G-8 summit two weeks ago will be > remembered as the most violent in a series of international protests > against "globalization," a rallying cry first popularized during > clashes at a 1999 trade meeting in Seattle. As the leaders of eight > leading industrialized countries met in Italy, TV viewers around the > world watched police fight citywide battles with anarchist militants > who set dozens of cars, banks and storefronts afire. > > But out of the TV cameras' gaze, another scene of violence was > unfolding -- on the part of the police. Now, as details of the school > raid emerge sketchily, it is turning into a political crisis for the > government of Silvio Berlusconi, the pro-American media mogul who ran > on a law-and-order platform. > > Initially, his government firmly defended police behavior. Mr. > Berlusconi said the school raid simply proved "collusion" between the > anarchists and mainstream demonstrators. Communications Minister > Maurizio Gasparri said it was "a detail" whether "a cop used his > truncheon four times instead of just three." The police, in a report > a few hours after the raid, said that the school was a "refuge of the > extreme fringe of the Black Block," and all those inside were members > of that violent, anarchist group. > > More recently, however, the government said something may have gone > wrong. The judiciary has launched an inquiry into the use of violence > during the raid and the treatment of those detained. Parliament has > formed a separate commission of inquiry. Interior Minister Claudio > Scajola promised last Wednesday that "if some untoward behavior will > emerge, and it looks like it is emerging, then it will be severely > reprimanded." Shortly thereafter, he removed three top police > officials, saying this would make it easier to investigate. > > Part of the pressure on the government is coming from abroad, > especially Germany. After first helping gather information on 39 > Germans arrested in the sweep at Diaz, Berlin is calling for a fuller > accounting. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer delivered that > demand to his Italian counterpart in a telephone call last week. > > The official inquiries are just beginning, but interviews with > numerous participants and witnesses offer the most complete account > yet of the events at the Diaz school. The accounts of 19 Diaz > detainees, who were interviewed in five countries, and those of > doctors, local officials and neighborhood witnesses indicate that > heavy force was used to arrest demonstrators who, for the most part, > hadn't been organizing the preceding days' violence but had been > peacefully protesting. After being denied contact with lawyers and > families for anywhere from one to four days, most of the people > detained at Diaz were brought before judges, who released all but one > and found that the overwhelming majority of the arrests were > "illegitimate." > > A complete response from the police wasn't possible because the raid > is under investigation. In an interview, Francesco Gratteri, head of > the national police Central Operative Service, partly defended the > raid. "One must take into account that the raid was very energetic > because it was met with an equally energetic resistance," said Mr. > Gratteri, who stood in the school's courtyard when the police charged > in. But he added that "evidently something abnormal happened there, > which is why there is an investigation." > > For Ms. Heigl, the events began around 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 21. > She and her boyfriend, Tobias Hubner, were heading over to the > Pertini middle school, part of a group of junior and senior high > schools known as the Diaz school complex. > > Ms. Heigl was feeling a sense of relief. On Friday, a militant had > been shot dead by police. On Saturday afternoon, tear gas had been > used to disperse a crowd estimated by the interior ministry at > 200,000. As rumors circulated that the police would raid places where > the demonstrators camped, such as the stadium where she and Mr. > Hubner had been sleeping, they decided they wanted a safer place. > They headed for the school, also open to the demonstrators, because > it was just across the street from the headquarters and press center > for the mainstream organizers. > > Eager to Get Home > > Back in Munich, Ms. Heigl had been engaged in fighting radical > right-wing groups and won a prestigious national award for her work. > But this was the first big demonstration she had attended, and she > was exhausted from the crowds and flood of information. "Everyone was > unsettled and we just wanted to get home," Ms. Heigl says. > > After checking train schedules near a computer area on the ground > floor, she and Mr. Hubner walked upstairs to visit a friend. > Suddenly, panic broke loose. From downstairs she heard cries of > "Police! Police!" as the front door crashed open. Then she heard > screams and the sounds of police yelling and smashing things. "We had > total fear," she says. > > Panicked, she and her boyfriend looked for an escape. The school was > under renovation, and scaffolding lined the outer walls. They climbed > onto it and waited. > > Downstairs at the computers, Ms. Jonasch stayed put, figuring that > her fluency in Italian would help her explain that she wasn't a > violent militant. She says she had been working as a volunteer at the > headquarters and hadn't been out to the protests. But she says a > group of riot police wearing helmets and body armor charged around > the corner, truncheons flying. She says that besides the initial blow > to her head, which knocked her out, she was hit on the shoulder and > buttocks. > > The hospital that treated her received dozens of similar cases. Among > patients still there last week was Daniel Albrecht, a 21-year-old > cello student from Berlin, who has undergone brain surgery to treat > cerebral bleeding and says he hears metallic sounds when he speaks. > > Another patient was Lena Zuhlke, a 24-year-old student of Indian > culture at the University of Hamburg, who says she was beaten, thrown > down two flights of stairs and dragged by the hair. "I didn't see any > faces. Throughout all this, I couldn't see anything at all above the > knees," says Ms. Zuhlke, her hand on a jar attached to her chest to > catch fluid draining from her lungs. > > Police, while asserting that all those inside the school were > anarchist militants, also have said that any protesters who were > hospitalized were extremists injured during earlier street battles. > That's an explanation that doctors say doesn't mesh with the cases > they saw. "There is no doubt that these wounds were fresh. We had to > sew up many of them on the spot," says Roberto Papparo, head of the > emergency department at Ospedale San Martino, Genoa's biggest > hospital. It dealt with more than 50 injured youths from the Diaz > school shortly after the raid, Dr. Papparo says, adding: "If these > people weren't brought to the hospital, there is no doubt that some > of them wouldn't be alive anymore." > > A visit to the school several hours after the raid showed pools of > blood on the floor and walls and several teeth strewn around. > > Apart from a handful who escaped, all the demonstrators at Diaz who > weren't hospitalized -- 32 people -- were rounded up. Ms. Heigl says > that after she heard the screaming and saw police beating students > unconscious, she and Mr. Hubner feared they would be in worse danger > if caught clinging to scaffolding. They climbed into the room, knelt > on the floor and put their hands on their heads. That didn't prevent > Mr. Hubner from receiving a few blows to the back and head with a > truncheon, and a dozen others interviewed say they too were hit while > in a submissive position. > > Ms. Heigl says she wasn't hit. She was taken to the Bolzaneto police > barracks, which had been turned into a holding center for the G-8 > summit. Situated inside a vast park-like complex of the national > police VI Mobile Division, the center had a series of unfurnished > cells that could hold 20 to 30 people each. > > Detainees say they had to stand spread-eagle against the wall for two > to three hours. They add that police walked up and down the line, > beating those whose hands slipped and whose heads weren't bent down. > "They kept cursing us and calling us names that I couldn't > understand," Ms. Heigl says. > > The man next to Ms. Heigl was pulled from the wall and sprayed > directly in the face with tear gas, say Ms. Heigl and a protester > interviewed separately. He collapsed and was dragged away to be > showered. He came back later, shivering, saying he had been stripped > naked and left under the water for half an hour. The group was then > sent to their cells, and the man had nothing to clothe himself with > except a plastic shower curtain, according to Ms. Heigl and the other > person, who both say they received just one cookie each to eat on > Sunday. At night, they say, they slept on a concrete floor and had > just three blankets for 30 or so people. > > "We had this feeling that everything was completely arbitrary and > that they had lost their minds," Ms. Heigl says. "But now I see that > it was all done extremely professionally. They wanted to disorient us > and break us, as though they were dealing with a gang of hardened > terrorists." > > The prisoners were registered on Monday, and their numbers at > Bolzaneto police barracks grew as many initially hospitalized were > sent over. Among them was Sherman Sparks, a 23-year-old from Oregon > spending a year in Europe. He said in a sworn affidavit that he had > been kicked in the head and groin during the raid. > > He, too, said he had to stand spread-eagle for two hours. He said in > his affidavit, which he sent to the U.S. Consulate in Milan, that > people standing next to him had broken arms and legs and that one man > collapsed, shaking uncontrollably. That incident is related by others > as well. WhenMr. Sparks couldn't understand commands in Italian, his > affidavit alleges, he was slapped or beaten or his head was rammed > into the wall. > > Detainees held in different cells and not known to each other paint a > common picture of the one to three days they spent in the detention > center: Strip searches were common. Men and women alike were forced > to use the toilet with police officers, usually men, in attendance. > Women were denied sanitary napkins, and requests for medical > attention were often refused. Roll calls went on day and night. > Detainees were asked to sign documents in Italian that they couldn't > understand and then sent back to the cell. Some signed, while others > refused. Phone calls and contact with attorneys weren't permitted. > > A Little Better > > Relief for Ms. Heigl came on Tuesday, July 24, when she was one of > the last to be transferred to a normal prison. Before leaving, she > says, she was ordered to strip naked again while a man in a blue polo > shirt inspected her. Some others say the same thing happened to them. > Then they were allowed to dress and eyeglasses taken from some > detainees were returned. But rings, earrings and money that had been > confiscated were not returned, Ms. Heigl and some other detainees > assert. > > Many detainees say they felt relieved when they got to the regular > prison. There, they had cots with sheets, and three meals a day. Ms. > Heigl received a message from her parents. > > They had been contacted by German authorities one day after the raid. > Her father, Wunibald Heigl, a high-school history teacher in Munich, > says the German authorities hadn't called to provide help but to find > out as much as possible about his daughter. "We called the German > consulate in Milan and were coldly told that everything was going > according to procedures," Mr. Heigl says. The German foreign ministry > had no comment on the raid, saying it was a subject of bilateral > talks. > > Detainees say they were given consular access for the first time on > Wednesday or Thursday, except for U.S. citizens, whose diplomats > visited them hours after the school raid. The detainees were also > taken before judges but not allowed to speak to an attorney > beforehand. > > All were charged with "aggravated resistance to arrest" and > "membership in an armed conspiracy to cause destruction." The raid > confirmed this membership, the police say. According to their report, > youths inside tried to block the entry gate and "engaged in scuffles" > with the agents. One allegedly tried to stab a policeman. At a news > conference, police displayed a small knife and a half-pierced > protective jacket but couldn't name the attacker. > > Many protesters interviewed agree that some Black Block militants may > have been hiding inside the school. But they say that if present, > these militants were a minority and didn't advertise their > affiliation. > > Possible Motive > > Local government officials say the center of the Black Block was > elsewhere. According to Marta Vincenzi, governor of the Genoa > province, 200 to 300 militants had kicked nonviolent demonstrators > out of a province-owned gym next to the Martin Luther King High > School in theevening of July 19, breaking school furniture inside to > fashion weapons. Ms. Vincenzi and other provincial officials say they > repeatedly called police with requests to intervene, to no avail. Ms. > Vincenzi theorizes that in their raid at Diaz, "police tried to > offset their initial excess of tolerance with an excess of vendetta" > at the school. > > Material seized in the raid suggests the police missed their mark. > The police report said the school "was a place dedicated to the > strategic planning and material manufacturing, by all persons present > inside, of instruments to attack police forces." The chief evidence > was two wine bottles filled with flammable liquid plus hammers and > nails taken from the construction site on school premises. In > addition, the police say they confiscated 17 cameras, 13 swimming > goggles, 10 Swiss army knives, four spent tear-gas shells, three > cellular phones, two thermos bottles and a bottle of suntan lotion. > The charges were presented to a team of judges who decided to free > all but one detainee. > > Ms. Heigl was released on Wednesday evening. The police initially > decreed that she and the other 77 foreign detainees would be expelled > >from Italy and barred for five years, but Italy later said the ban > didn't apply to EU citizens. Ms. Heigl's parents, who had driven to > Genoa to find their daughter, followed the police truck that carried > her and about 30 others to the Austrian border. There, those released > were put on a train to Munich. > > Ms. Heigl now will resume work on her master's degree. Earlier this > year, she visited Peru to collect material for a thesis on the > collapse of democracy under Alberto Fujimori. She says her experience > in Genoa has given her a new appreciation of the fragility of civil > liberties: "I realize now I didn't have to go all the way to Peru to > do my studies." > > -- Alessandra Pugliese contributed to this article. > _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ ----------
