FC: Genoa protester tells of beatings, abuse, retinal scans by cops

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue Jul 31 2001 - 11:45:50 PDT

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    [Obviously we don't know if this is pure fabrication, but it does have the 
    ring of truth -- outrage over life-threatening beatings and then repeated 
    annoyance over being served ham sandwiches instead of a vegan meal. The 
    activists who have been trade summit-hopping aren't stupid, and through the 
    Independent Media Centers are reasonably well connected. They now know that 
    they can get beaten, tortured, robbed, and perhaps even killed by cops. 
    (Yes, there were persistent reports of police brutality at previous 
    protests, including the GOP convention, and I wrote about them at the time. 
    But they were mild compared to these charges.) So the Black Bloc and even 
    their less-extreme allies have some obvious options: (1) Stay home; (2) 
    Hope that other cops won't be as thuggish and sadistic as the Italians 
    allegedly are; (3) Buy hundreds of X10 cams and stream live footage from 
    activist HQ to a secure server in another jurisdiction; (4) Erect defensive 
    fortifications at activist HQ and arm themselves heavily for when the cops 
    arrive with the nightsticks out. --Declan]
    
    ********
    
    Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 12:33:58 -0400
    From: Bonnie <rabbitat_private>
    To: declanat_private
    Cc: Bonnie <rabbitat_private>
    Subject: Italian police scan retinas of protestors
    
    Check this out. The rest is pretty bad, but note that they also
    did retinal scans on the protestors.
    
    Bonnie
    
    
    -----Forwarded message from Fitzhugh MacCrae <alaidhat_private>-----
    
    FYI-
    
    
    STATEMENT OF
    JONATHAN NORMAN BLAIR
    
    I declare that this is a true and honest statement
    which I have written
    on
    Friday 27th July 2001. I permit it to be used by other
    individuals and
    agencies
    who support me and all the other people arrested at
    the Scolastico  A.
    Diaz
    and surrounding area on the night of Saturday 21st
    July 2001. I state
    that I
    wish to sue the Italian police for illegal arrest,
    kidnapping and
    torture and I ask
    for support in doing this. Please contact me via
    e-mail.
    
    I went to Genoa to participate in the mass
    demonstrations against the
    G8 and
    its policies. I went because I believe in a free and
    equal society with
    people
    living in harmony with each other and the ecological
    system. I flew out
    with my
    friend Dan McQuillan on Tuesday 17th July (our return
    flight was on
    Monday
    23rd July) on Ryan Air from Stansted to Genoa.
    On Saturday night we were staying at the Scolastico A.
    Diaz. The school
    was
    having renovation work done on it but as far as I was
    aware, it was
    legally
    occupied and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly.
    It was directly
    opposite
    the media centre and the Genoa Social Forum
    administrative base.
    It was a big building with several floors, old with
    high ceilings.
    Through the
    front doors was a large hallway. On the left was a
    ramp leading up to a
    line of
    computers. To the left of that were stairs leading to
    the first floor
    where
    Dan and I were staying.
    The room we stayed in had a window view onto the
    courtyard at the front
    of the
    school and was directly opposite the media centre with
    a narrow road
    in-between.
    I went to bed about 12 o'clock on Saturday night.
    Staying in the room
    was Dan
    and a guy from New Zealand who I now know to be Sam
    Buchanan. I was
    dozing off
    and then I suddenly heard a crashing, roaring sound
    coming from
    outside. I
    quickly got out of my sleeping bag and looked out of
    the window. I saw
    a mass
    of police made up of squads from various cities (I
    know this from the
    documents that the judge gave me when I was released)
    filling the
    street
    outside.
    One of my memories was of the police with shields
    charging down the
    street
    followed by 2 police vans. There were people in the
    street shouting and
    screaming. It was a nightmare of sound. I presume that
    this is the
    point that
    Mark Covell (another UK national) was critically
    injured by the police
    as he
    was crossing the street.
    I began rapidly putting my clothes on and looked out
    of the window
    again. I saw
    the police van ram the school gates. We began to push
    our bags into the
    corner
    of the room hoping that if they came along the
    scaffolding that the
    police
    wouldn't see us. I heard people screaming in pain from
    downstairs. It
    took
    about a few minutes before the police smashed down the
    door to our
    room.
    They smashed our door down and had a large
    searchlight, which they
    shone into
    the room. As soon as they saw us they were on us.
    There was maybe about
    a dozen
    of them, it was complete chaos. Dan was completely
    battered by them all
    down
    his left side, he had his wrist broken and he had
    blows to the head.
    Sam was
    battered over the head three time  when I met him in
    the prison
    afterwards, he
    said that each time he was hit that it was like in a
    cartoon book as he
    saw
    stars and sparkles from the force of the blows. I
    received blows while
    we were
    on the floor and have bruises, but nothing in
    comparison with the
    others. I
    don't know how long this lasted, maybe just a couple
    of minutes, maybe
    a bit
    longer. I could feel the venom and hatred from them.
    They eventually left the room and as we lay there in a
    pool of blood
    they threw
    some of the window frames and other furniture on top
    of us. It was as
    if they
    were the destroy squad and then a minute or so later
    came the
    'retrieval'
    squad. They told us to get out of the room and as we
    went down the
    stairs the
    police were lined up and were hitting us with their
    batons. It was as
    if they
    had gone berserk and they were getting in each others
    way trying to get
    to
    us.
    We moved down the ramp into the main hall area. We
    were told to get on
    the
    floor and had to lie kneeling on the floor, head down
    and arms
    stretched out in
    front. At one point someone who I assume had been
    badly beaten up
    outside was
    brought into the hall on a stretcher. This lasted
    about maybe 15-20
    minutes (it
    was difficult to tell the passage of time in this
    situation) till the
    medical
    workers and ambulances arrived. Dan was bleeding
    heavily.
    The ambulance crew arrived and began ripping up
    cardboard boxes to make
    splints
    as they did not have enough equipment to deal with the
    number of broken
    bones.
    Of the 93 people arrested, over 60 went to hospital
    and remember, this
    was
    not for minor injuries but for broken bones and head
    trauma. One man
    was
    completely battered down his back and did not go to
    hospital.
    Dan was put on an ambulance trolley and I was holding
    his hand and
    helping
    him.
    I demanded to go with Dan to the ambulance because he
    was in such a
    state and
    could not speak Italian. The police were reluctant to
    let me leave but
    the
    paramedics insisted that I came. With them we made our
    way to the
    ambulance
    outside. As we were leaving the building, the police
    tried to rip a
    money belt
    off Dan. I unclipped it so they wouldn't hurt Dan
    further. One cop
    began
    flicking through the money belt and we haven't seen it
    since. It
    contained
    Dan's passport, at least one credit card and several
    hundred pounds of
    English
    and Italian money.
    We were taken to the Galliera (?) Hospital, in Genoa.
    In the ambulance
    the crew
    were really friendly to us, in the hospital with
    police around they
    were not.
    It felt like a police state with police in complete
    command. I sat in
    the
    waiting room while Dan was being treated. I felt
    terrified. I saw a pay
    phone
    and had a phone card on me. I rang my girlfriend Mel
    and another friend
    about
    Saturday 1.10am British time. I left a message that we
    had been
    attacked and
    that I was OK but Dan was in hospital badly injured.
    When trying to
    make a
    third call I was stopped by a police officer.
    The people taken to hospital had fairly serious
    injuries and had to sit
    on
    chairs waiting. The police had taken over the
    hospital. As I understand
    it
    people with such traumas (eg head injuries) should be
    under medical
    observation
    for 24 hours. There was a group of about a dozen of us
    in the hallway,
    under
    police guard. They then started moving us to a police
    van. I had to sit
    on the
    floor for the journey. Dan was also in the van. We
    were driven to a
    holding
    centre called Bolzenato (I was told later by other
    prisoners  I am not
    sure if
    this is the correct spelling or name). It did not
    appear to be an
    official
    police station or prison. It was a place of a terror
    and fear.
    On getting out of the van the first thing we had to do
    was to put our
    hands up
    and face the wall with legs apart (in a spread-eagled
    position). The
    police
    were kicking our feet apart if they thought that our
    feet were too
    close
    together. One police officer who kicked my legs looked
    about 18 years
    old (I
    was old enough to be his father!). We were made to
    face the wall in
    this
    position and there was a row of us. A police officer
    came behind me and
    speaking English in an Italian accent said 'who is
    your government'.
    The person
    before me in the row had answered 'Polizei', so I said
    the same. I was
    afraid
    of being beaten. I think at this point they took our
    names and
    addresses.
    They then took us to a cell. The cell was quite large
    with a high
    ceiling,
    heavily barred windows and high doors. We were told to
    sit down with
    our backs
    against the wall. People in the cell, especially young
    people were
    crying a lot
    of the time. They were traumatised. I tried to lock
    inside myself, stay
    calm
    and strong.
    At one point we had to stand with our hands against
    the wall, arms up
    for an
    hour and 15 minutes with police screaming abuse at us.
    For all I knew
    there was
    a police officer behind me with a truncheon ready to
    beat me across the
    back.
    There were different voices screaming abuse, I was
    lucky I didn't
    understand
    Italian. My hands and arms went dead, I felt strange
    sensations in my
    palms. It
    was helpful to me to meditate, to focus my mind. It
    was physically hard
    to
    keep that position for even a short length of time.
    Dan with a broken
    wrist and
    head injuries also had to do this.
    The cell itself was freezing, the floor had ceramic
    tiles and it was
    cold even
    in the daytime. I had on a cotton shirt and jeans
    only. Dan was wearing
    shorts
    and a thin shirt, he did manage to get a sleeping bag,
    I can't remember
    where
    from, but we all shared it. At one point the police
    took Dan out of the
    cell.
    We didn't know what was going to happen to him. Later
    on I heard this
    woman
    shouting 'please help me, please help me' over and
    over. This was
    torture, it
    was psychological and physical warfare. The torture
    consisted of:
    · Physical abuse (blows etc)
    · Sleep deprivation
    · Having to endure cold temperatures with no
    protection
    · Food and water deprivation
    · Refusal to have any access to outside world
    · Forced into spreadeagled position
    · Verbal abuse
    · Extreme intimidation (eg people disappearing and
    then screams start)
    Anyone in there who looked punk or scruffy was getting
    a really hard
    time.
    There was an American guy in there in his 30's, I saw
    his back on
    Tuesday and
    he was completely battered, all over his back. He'd
    said that when the
    school
    was raided he was beaten on his back. Every time they
    beat him they cut
    some
    more of his dreadlocks off till they'd cut all his
    locks off. A woman
    said
    that
    when she was attacked by the police (at the school),
    they cut off a
    lump of
    her
    hair (and her appearance was very straight). It felt
    like they were
    taking
    trophies.
    A man said that he was beaten on the back when he had
    his arms up.  I
    was hit
    in the face when the police were strip searching me,
    it was an
    open-handed
    blow. Dan said it was important to scream when the
    police hit you in
    order to
    deflect them from beating you further.
    The most threatening police officers there we called
    the 'grey
    monsters'. They
    were enormous, similar to bouncers. They had grey
    uniforms, body
    armour, and
    big boots.
    Whenever you had to go to the toilet, a police officer
    (sometimes a
    'grey
    monster', sometimes another type of officer) would
    'escort' you by
    holding the
    flesh at the back of the neck and walking you so you
    were bent over,
    sometimes
    almost bent over double. You were unable to see
    anything or know who
    else was
    there. With at least two of the cells, they hung
    sheets over the doors
    so you
    could not see inside at all. I remember seeing one
    cell through the
    corner of
    my eye with I think two people inside with their arms
    up the walls. It
    was
    scary.
    I was held in these conditions from about 5 am Sunday
    morning till 6 am
    Monday
    morning, about 24 hours. Later I found that other
    people were held for
    longer.
    During this time we suffered sleep deprivation. Groups
    of police were
    standing
    at the door and at the window, shouting across the
    room, yelling and
    laughing.
    I saw Dan and another prisoner being spat on by police
    officers.
    The floor was freezing cold with no blankets. For the
    first six hour we
    had no
    food or water. About midday they brought us two very
    small biscuits
    each.
    Later
    on in the afternoon they gave us about dozen ham rolls
    which we shared
    between
    the fourteen of us. I would have thought that they
    knew many of us were
    vegetarian.
    We had to stand with our arms up facing the wall 3 or
    4 times but there
    was no
    attempt to question us (although as far as I know,
    some prisoners might
    have
    been interrogated  I just did not hear of this
    happening). They also
    kept
    counting us and asking our names frequently, which
    often seemed to be
    nothing
    more than a deliberate disruption.
    I had now been without sleep since Saturday morning (I
    had only just
    gone to
    bed when the police raided), by Monday night I was
    hallucinating and
    became
    very paranoid. Many people had similar experiences.
    One man did not
    know that
    he was even in Genoa, he was in such a state.
    Depriving people of sleep
    was a
    completely deliberate policy by the police. Every half
    an hour to an
    hour they
    would begin shouting and yelling. At no point were we
    allowed access to
    a
    lawyer.
    The police began processing people about 3am (?) on
    Monday morning. I
    was
    photographed directly onto a laptop, and they also
    used an eye camera,
    presumably to take a retina scan and I was
    fingerprinted. I was asked
    to strip
    and squat.
    Eventually I was put into a cell on a bus and cuffed
    tightly to another
    prisoner. It was around 6 am when we in this bus (I
    believe that it was
    the
    first bus, the prisoners whose surname started early
    in the alphabet
    like
    mine)
    were taken to Pavia prison. As we were taken up the
    stairs into the
    prison I
    received a blow to my back by a prison officer in a
    dark section of the
    stairwell. It was around maybe 9 am Monday morning
    that I was taken to
    a cell
    on my own. There was a mattress and blanket and
    thankfully it was
    warmer. It
    sounds odd but I was relieved to be in prison. At a
    later point I was
    taken to
    another cell. I was given pasta with meat in, even
    though I had told
    the
    prison
    officer that I was vegetarian.
    Between coming into the prison on about 7 am Monday
    and leaving it at
    about
    6pm
    Wednesday I had no exercise even though I requested it
    on many
    occasions.
    Dan managed to see a lawyer sometime on Tuesday. He
    bought back news of
    a
    30,000 strong demonstration it Milan against the
    shooting and the
    beatings by
    the Italian police and the fact that there was massive
    opposition to
    this
    brutal repression. It was very encouraging for me,
    sometimes I believed
    that
    maybe we might have been forgotten about even though I
    knew that was
    not true.
       He also managed to send out a telegram. I requested
    a lawyer and
    consulate
    access and to be able to send a telegram, I completed
    the relevant
    forms but
    was not granted any of my requests. It wasn't until
    later on Tuesday
    about
    6 pm
    that I received a telegram from my girlfriend Mel.
    On Wednesday morning Dan was taken off to the judge,
    as were many other
    prisoners. I started getting worried and I expected
    the worse, maybe
    that I
    would have serious charges brought against me and that
    I would be
    framed by
    the
    police.
    But later on Wednesday afternoon I was taken in front
    of the judge, who
    had
    arrived at the prison. There was a lawyer present from
    the Genoa Social
    Forum.
    I had to explain to the judge about the nature of the
    arrest, and
    whether I
    had
    any connections to the black block. This interview
    took about 10
    minutes. I
    was
    then taken back to my cell and then brought in front
    of the judge again
    after
    15 minutes. The judge said the arrest was illegal and
    that there would
    be no
    charges made against me, and that I was free to go. I
    was released at
    about 6
    pm on Wednesday evening into police detention.
    There were about 60-100 people protesting outside the
    police station
    gates,
    they stayed there till at least 4.45 am the next
    morning to clap and
    cheer as
    people were being released. That was fantastic and I
    know all the
    prisoners
    really appreciated that active solidarity.
    I was met by lawyers from the Genoa Social Forum and a
    lawyer called
    Marie
    Louisa (?). The Germans who were detained were
    deported to the German
    border.
    The Germans had a large escort of police to take them
    to the border.
    One
    Lithuanian guy had no money, passport or documents and
    the Lithuanian
    consulate
    were not contactable. I gave him some money and asked
    the lawyers to
    look
    after
    him. Local people brought us food and clothes. The
    consulate staff were
    also
    there to meet us at the prison and they stayed with us
    all the time in
    the
    police station for which I am grateful.
    We were all released without charge, yet we have been
    banned from
    entering
    Italy for 5 years. But this is from an illegal arrest.
    The reason given
    was
    that I am 'a danger to public order and security'. The
    lawyers made
    many
    protests against the imposed deportation order and we
    collectively
    protested
    against the it, however we were taken to a Milan
    airport and basically
    left
    there with no passports or money, all we had was a
    letter from the
    police. We
    had to pay for our own flights for our own
    deportation.
    Despite the fact that we were being deported by the
    italisan state, we
    had to
    each buy our own tickets costing £230 each  we arrived
    at Heathrow on
    Thursday
    morning.
    
    In conclusion, it felt like the beginning of a police
    state, like how,
    for
    example, Pinochet seized power in Chile. There was no
    rule of law or
    any
    regard
    for constitutional rights. The police were genuinely
    the government.
    But I do
    not blame Italian people for this, many Italian people
    gave me much
    solidarity
    and support  I blame the Italian police and the
    Italian state for what
    happened
    and I call upon them to be bought to account for their
    completely
    unacceptable
    actions.
    I would like to end by saying that I am not
    intimidated or frightened
    by this
    police brutality. I am determined that the police and
    their political
    masters
    will not get away with this. There have been hundreds
    of thousands of
    people
    all around the world supporting us and opposing the
    G8. There is a huge
    push
    for change and I am proud to be part of it.
    
    Signed  Jonathan Norman Blair
    Friday 27th July 2001
    
    
    
    
    
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