From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 10:41:34 -0700 To: "Rad Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [R-G] G8 updates Police Use of Force in Genoa Raises Outcry Weeks Later http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/international/08ITAL.html Italy Holding a New Jersey Woman,21, Snared in the Genoa Fracas http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/international/08PROT.html Protesters raised their hands in surrender at a police raid during a Group of 8 meeting in Genoa in July. http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/2001/08/08/international/08ital.1.jpg August 8, 2001 Police Use of Force in Genoa Raises Outcry Weeks Later http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/08/international/08ITAL.html By MELINDA HENNEBERGER ROME, Aug. 7 =97 More than two weeks ago, Susan Hager received a call in= Portland, Ore. about her daughter, a student who had stopped off in Genoa= to join protesters at the Group of 8 summit meeting on her way to a junior= year abroad program in Siena. "Her friend had found her bloody belongings" at the Armando Diaz school= complex in Genoa where protesters had been staying, Mrs. Hager said. There,= in the early hours of July 22, 92 young people were dragged from their beds= by squads of Italian anti-riot police officers who beat and jailed them. Sixty of these demonstrators =97 originally described by Italian officials= as marauding anarchists but in more recent official reports as mostly= peaceful =97 were injured in the raid. At least two dozen were= hospitalized, including Mrs. Hager's daughter, Morgan, and two other= Americans. Witnesses described students crouching as they were kicked, pummeled with= clubs and thrown down stairs, and emergency room doctors said a number of= the injured would have died without treatment. Television crews arriving on= the scene later filmed pools of blood and teeth knocked out during the= raid. It was a day or two "before we knew our daughter wasn't in a coma," Mrs.= Hager said. But Morgan Hager, 20, an honors student at the University of= Oregon, had cuts and bruises from her ankles to her neck and three broken= bones in her hand. Almost as painful as the news about her daughter, Mrs. Hager said, was the= sense that most Americans remain unaware of the brutality of the raid,= which Italian officials originally justified by saying that protesters at= the school =97 made available to nonviolent protesters =97 had been= harboring members of the violent Black Bloc anarchists. Four Americans remain in jail, including Susanna Thomas, a Bryn Mawr student= and Quaker from New Jersey who was arrested with an Austrian theater group= as it was leaving Genoa. [Page A8.] Outrage about the police behavior has built across Europe, where the issue= has become a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.= Thousands of people have marched in protest, governments have expressed= concern and newspapers have been filled with accounts of police brutality.= One young Italian man was shot dead in the protests at the summit meeting,= about 200 people were injured and some 300 were arrested. There have been major demonstrations in Paris, London, Geneva, Rome, Berlin,= Belgrade and Athens, where riot police officers used tear gas to disperse= several thousand people en route to the Italian embassy. In Amsterdam last= week, about a dozen protesters managed to take over the Italian consulate= and hung a banner out front: "Italy Tortures G- 8 Detainees." Spain's European Affairs Secretary, Ramon de Miguel, called the scenes a= replay of fascism. Hans- Christian Str=F6bele, a European deputy from= Germany, said the Genoa police reminded him of "the military dictatorship= in Argentina." Hermann Lutz, chairman of the European Police Union, told the German= television network ZDF that as he watched the riots on television he= thought "it had to have been in some kind of dictatorship or in Eastern= Europe or in Cuba, but not among us in the middle of Europe." Germany's Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, a left-wing activist in his= younger years, has called his Italian counterpart, Renato Ruggiero, to urge= the Italian government to investigate police actions. Twenty- one Germans= are among the 39 people still being held in Italian jails. One German who was also arrested in the raid at the school in Genoa, a man= who asked that he not be identified, described his ordeal in a written= statement issued by his lawyer, Dagmar Vogel, in Oberhausen. "I was hit in= the head, the back, and the legs and a hard hit on the head. My skull= flattened, I bled badly. I lay in my own blood bath and didn't move at= all." Sometime after 2 in the morning, he was arrested while still in the= hospital, not allowed to sleep or make phone calls, he said. Throughout four days of detention, he said he was forced to stand with his= hands up against the wall for hours, was harassed about going to the= bathroom and repeatedly taken from one location to another. Ms. Thomas was arrested along with two dozen members of the Austrian group= Publix Theater. According to the respected Austrian weekly Profil, the= conservative Austrian government had initially dismissed reports of police= brutality and sent Italy reports in which Publix had been characterized as= violent anarchists. But Profil said those reports predated an economic= summit meeting in Salzburg in July at which the group protested peacefully= with street performances. After reading a full investigation by the= Austrian consulate general in Milan, Foreign Minister Benita Maria Ferrero-= Waldner is reported to have requested that Italy transfer home the 16= remaining Publix members. In a summary of the Austrian consulate's report to the Austrian Foreign= Ministry, posted on Profil's web site (www.profil.at/aktuell), several= members of Publix described being arrested at gunpoint, strip searched,= beaten and berated by officers who shouted in English, "I break you!" and= "You monster!" Ms. Thomas's family has complained that the United States government has not= done nearly enough in speaking out against what went on. "The U.S. is conspicuous by its absence in the list of nations that have= protested to the Italian government over the imprisonment and the behavior= of the Italian police in their handling of the protests in Genoa," her= father, Rick Thomas, said in a message on the family's web site. A spokesman for the American Consulate in Milan said, "We're doing all we= can." Even some members of Italy's center-right coalition now concede that= something went terribly wrong in Genoa though they continue to point= fingers at the left, saying that the former center-left government was= responsible for planning security for the summit meeting. Italian courts have opened at least half a dozen separate investigations= into various allegations of police brutality, and a parliamentary inquiry= began today. Testifying at a Senate hearing in Rome, Genoa's leftist mayor, Guiseppe= Pericu, said Mr. Berlusconi's government should shoulder the full blame for= police misconduct. Mr. Berlusconi has also been criticized recently for suggesting that he= would like to get out of hosting the United Nations Food and Agriculture= Organization's summit meeting, scheduled to be held in Rome in November. Interior Minister Claudio Scajola has removed three top police officials who= ran security operations at the summit meeting, but has not apologized. "A= state must never lose the monopoly on the use of force," he said recently,= "and the ability to guarantee the safety of a summit." But other members of the government coalition have criticized Mr. Berlusconi= directly. "It is not possible that the head of government goes to Genoa four times,= and preoccupies himself only with flower pots, dirty laundry and building= facades," Domenico Fisichella, a senator of the far-right Alleanza= Nazionale, said on Monday, referring to Mr. Berlusconi's comments before= the meeting on details like the unsightliness of underwear hung out to dry. "Who was taking care of the problems of public order?," Mr. Fisichella said.= "Who evaluated the impact? Why were necessary precautions not taken? It's= too easy to liquidate a few functionaries and consider the question= closed." August 8, 2001 Italy Holding a New Jersey Woman, 21, Snared in the Genoa Fracas By ROBERT HANLEY ARREN, N.J., Aug. 7 =97 Susanna Thomas called home this morning from the= Italian jail where she has been held since her arrest outside Genoa on July= 22, hours after the end of the summit meeting of the major industrialized= nations and the street disorder that swirled around it. It was the first time her parents, Cathy and Rick, had heard her voice since= she called them shortly before her arrest, saying she was leaving Genoa and= going to the beach with some friends and then heading to France to catch a= flight home. The young woman's call today gave her parents and their older daughter,= Helen, a welcome 10- minute respite in their two-and-a- half-week ordeal. "She sounded scared," Mrs. Thomas said. "And she was concerned about the= others arrested with her. She feels they're all innocent." Instead of preparing for her senior year at Bryn Mawr College in= Pennsylvania, Ms. Thomas, 21, described as a devout Quaker and an ardent= foe of the death penalty, is facing a possible 15-year sentence. The charge against her is conspiring with a group to commit devastation and= plundering during the Genoa meeting, said the family's lawyer, Dick Atkins= of Philadelphia. Mr. Atkins called the charge ludicrous. He said that Ms. Thomas, who had e-mailed her parents that she was avoiding= the rowdy demonstrations in Genoa, left town afterward with 25 members of= an Austrian protest group called Publix Theatre. Most were on a bus, the= lawyer said; Ms. Thomas was in a car. After the arrest, police confiscated two penknives and a black bra from the= car, Mr. Atkins said. He said Italian authorities were apparently trying to= establish a link between Ms. Thomas and an anarchist group, the Black Bloc,= whose members wear black. The group clashed with the police in Genoa. New Jersey's senators, Robert G. Torricelli and Jon S. Corzine, have written= to the American charg=E9 d'affaires in Rome, William P. Pope, asking him to= intercede with the Italian authorities. Ms. Thomas's imprisonment is a jarring end to a semester of studying art,= theology and politics at the Jesuit University in Paris, with some side= trips to meet with Quaker groups and determine if there is common ground= between their church, with its tenet of nonviolence, and more radical= groups promoting social activism in Europe. She had hoped to develop that= theme into her senior thesis at Bryn Mawr, where she is majoring in urban= planning. The Thomas family dining room is now a makeshift communications hub. The= parents have sent hundreds of e-mails to Quakers throughout the country and= Europe appealing for prayers for their daughter. Boxes are filled with= replies and copies of a brief biography of their daughter and other= documents describing her devotion to community service, including a year's= duty with AmeriCorps from 1997 to 1998 in the southeastern United States.= The fruit and vegetable drawers from the refrigerator sit on a dining room= table, overflowing with paperwork. "I'm concerned about our child's safety," Mrs. Thomas said. "But I'm also= saddened and concerned about all the people involved. I'm just so sorry= this whole thing turned out so badly." ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ---- Leninist-International: Building bridges in the tradition of V.I. Lenin. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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