Upcoming Events

National | Anti-Capitalism

no events match your query!

New Events

National

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en

offsite link Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en

offsite link How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

offsite link Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

Voltaire Network >>

The ghosts of summit-protests-past: Seeking justice after Genoa at the Grassroots Gathering

category national | anti-capitalism | feature author Wednesday May 28, 2008 11:13author by padraic - GG 2008author email grassrootsgathering08 at gmail dot comauthor phone 00 353 85 724 3832 Report this post to the editors

featured image
From Genoa to the Gathering

The events of Genoa 2001 are still going through the courts, as the Genova Legal Forum puts the state on trial for human rights crimes during the Diaz raid and at Bolzaneto detention centre. Verdicts are in soon. Activist Trauma Support, on tour with films, information, and a donations bucket for the court case, will stop off in Dublin on Friday May 30th to open this year's Grassroots Gathering. We caught up with ATS's Mark Covell before he caught his ferry over.

The ghosts of summit-protests-past – and of the torture techniques pioneered by the British Army in Northern Ireland – will be in the air on Friday May 30th from 8pm, when the 2008 Grassroots Gathering opens with the Irish leg of a major film and information tour by Activist Trauma Support and the Genova Legal Forum. Mark Covell of ATS, a veteran of the protests against the Genoa G8 summit of 2001, will tell the story of the battle for some kind of justice by the survivors of some of Genoa's bloodiest episodes. He'll have some help from the high-quality films put together by the Genova Legal Forum to reconstruct just what happened on those July days in Genoa.

Mark got the inside track on this story the hard way: “I suffered a broken hand, damaged my spine, eight broken ribs, a shredded lung, lost most of my teeth and was in a coma.”

But the reminiscing isn't just for posterity: since 2001, GLC have been busy building cases against the Italian state, and its agents, for the human rights crimes of Genoa. Mark emphasises the scale of the enterprise: “It took some time... to put together two of the largest human rights cases in the world, I think... given the number of police who are on trial. 29 police were arrested for Diaz, and indicted in 2003, put on trial in October 2005, and for Bolzaneto it was 47.”

These cases – dealing with the infamous police attack on the Diaz school, a base-camp for anti-G8 protesters, and with the torture charges surrounding the Bolzaneto detention centre – are set to conclude in the coming months, and GLC and ATS are set on spreading the word and drumming up support for a process that has cost them millions of Euro: “It's cost us about €7,500,000 to prosecute the case.”

Although Mark is hopeful that the trials will result in multiple years in prison for many of the dozens of police chiefs and officers on trial – “the cream of their officer corps” – and in substantial compensation for some of their victims, he also highlights the obstacles facing the case: “Because there is no law of torture in Italy, you can't apply sentences of, say, around ten years. So the highest we'll be able to get is five years, eight months... I'm very disappointed the judge can only hand out sentences according to Italian statute law, it's not enough. You see protestors get eleven years [in the recent 'Trial of 25”] and then you see a... policeman who breaks the fingers of protestors [in Bolzaneto detention centre] only getting like three years. It's not right.”

Although international torture agreements have not been incorporated into Italian law, Mark stresses that the GLC cases draw on the precedents of the Irish state's legal battle with the UK over torture in Northern Ireland: “In 1972 at the time of Bloody Sunday, the British Army came up with five torture techniques, which was revealed in court paperwork from that year. It seems that the police at Bolzaneto adopted four out of the five techniques... Obviously the same techniques have gone on to be used at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, so what happened in your country is now pretty much standard torture technique chic.

“We want to reach Mary Robinson, because one of the things we wanna do is bring the Diaz case to the United Nations, and we need her help, and we also want to make her aware, and the Irish government, of the relationship that the case has with your country.”

Asked about the implications of the trials and of Genoa's legacy for the movement against global capitalism now and in the future, Mark points out trends in Italy and elsewhere: “Last year a sort of low intensity war broke out between left-wingers and right-wing sort of Nazi supporters in Rome, and this is escalating... There's been a killing of a protester in Turin just a few weeks ago. Also, there's recently been an Italian election where Berlusconi's got back in, and Liga Nord have also swept in... So we're back to a worse political status quo than there was before the G8 itself...

“So we're very conscious of what impact the outcome of these trials might have in Italy... Last year the Diaz and Bolzaneto trials generated about 600 news articles in Italy, plus several TV shows and documentaries... We had a big demo in Genoa in November, we were expecting 20,000 people and 80,000 people showed up... We're hoping to get a parliamentary inquiry off the ground to bring reforms to the Italian police... We're also trying to put Gianfranco Fini on trial, because he's the man responsibe [as then Interior Minister] for ordering the Diaz raid... There's also a new torture law that's passing its way through the Italian parliament – because at the moment Italian police can torture their citizens and get away with it.

“The No-Global movement still exists, especially in places like Latin America, and it's moved on since 2001... The movement won't be bowed by this sort of violence from the state... I think there'll be more protests from 2009 onwards, as people protest over Kyoto, food riots, the energy crisis... The G8 returns to Italy in 2009, in La Maddelena, and we wanna talk about that as well...

“So it's really up to the state to understand what's coming towards it, and not to use violence, to use democratic means and negotiation to sort all this out. No more people need to die. I'm just so tired of seeing people die over this.


Genoa Benefit Film night: An opening to Grassroots Gathering 2008

Casadh, Unit 13, Newmarket Square, Dublin 8
Friday May 30th
8pm

Films:

L'Ordine Publico, Genoa 2001: Public Order during the G8

The Diaz Raid, Genoa 2001

Suggested donation: €3/4
No-one refused through lack of funds

See: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87736

Related Link: http://grassrootsgathering.wordpress.com/

ggbanner_2_1.jpg

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   Flyer     Grassroots Gathering 2008    Tue May 27, 2008 23:49 
   more info     Laurence Cox    Wed May 28, 2008 11:15 
   Bel Paese     Marco    Wed May 28, 2008 11:58 
   BAe mole martin hogbin     tomeile    Wed May 28, 2008 13:04 
   Fini     Donagh    Wed May 28, 2008 13:49 
   CASADH venue - drug & alcohol free     grassroots gathering 2008    Wed May 28, 2008 16:27 
   Reply to Donagh     Marco    Wed May 28, 2008 18:20 
   Fini...     Mark Covell    Thu May 29, 2008 14:52 
   Reply to Mark     Marco    Fri May 30, 2008 17:12 
 10   LINK-Melbourne G20 Arrestees in Court     Melbourne    Sat May 31, 2008 05:34 
 11   I'm Spartacus! Justice for Genoa.     Mark O'Connor    Fri Jun 06, 2008 14:48 
 12   Solidairty from Melboune     Sina    Sat Jun 07, 2008 06:58 


Number of comments per page
  
 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy