To all those who were at Genoa or have an interest in the event….

The Berlin Film Festival has shortlisted and nominated two Genoa G8 films for the critically acclaimed Panorama Dokumente award. Domenico Procacci’s DIAZ: Don’t Clean Up This Blood will premiere on February 12th. and Franco Fracassi’s ‘The Summit’ (G-Gate) will premiere on February 14th. Procacci’s DIAZ was conceived as a movie film project during the summer of 2009 with the permission of several of the Diaz victims, including myself. Procacci’s production company, Fandango spent 2009 to early 2011 preparing a script around six victims and six police characters who were at Diaz. Source: http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/two-g8-films-shortlisted-and-nominated-for-the-berlin-film-festival.287822/ weiter...

A documentary film by Carlo A. Bachschmidt

Short Synopsis

Genoa 2001: As the G8 Summit drew to a close and the press and politicians had departed, 300 riot police stormed the Diaz School looking for members of the infamous Black Block. They found instead young activists, mostly students, teenagers and journalists from around Europe preparing to bunk down on the school’s floors. Undeterred, they unleashed a calculated frenzy of violence, beating both young and old, male and female indiscriminately.

Those seriously injured were rushed to the hospital in ambulances, though soon after they were forced to join those who had been arrested and driven to a detention centre where they were subjected to further abuse and degradation.

Amnesty International called the result of the subsequent trials of the police officers involved “The most serious suspension of human rights in western country since the second world war.”

Source: http://www.claudiatomassini.com/uploads/media/Black_Block_press_book.pdf weiter...

Yasha Maccanico

Since the traumatic events of the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001 the right to protest has increasingly been limited. Government restrictions have been wide-ranging and indiscriminate and affected a diverse range of groups including students, migrants, shepherds and manual labourers

Events in 2010 resulted in mobilisations around a number of issues ranging from garbage collection in the region of Campania, to the earthquake in Abruz2zo, Sardinian shepherds, football fans protesting against the introduction of the tessera del tifoso (fans’ card, TdT), to migrants criticising their treatment and administrative obstacles in the way of their regularisation, to students protesting against the education system reform involving substantial cuts and to industrial struggles by workers suffering the effects of the economic crisis and new conditions introduced in factories that undermine their rights. Since the traumatic events at the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001 heavy-handed policing has gone hand-in-hand with initiatives aimed at limiting the right to protest. The imperative of “maintaining” public order has been invoked to stifle activism through measures like special restrictions imposed on football supporters. This article will seek to present an overview of a few of these cases in order to identify some significant trends.

Source: http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-138-italy-public-order-demos.pdf weiter...

TEN YEARS OF ATTACKS ON FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS – THE ROLE OF LAWYERS – international conference Friday, 22nd July 2011 – Palazzo Ducale, Genoa

Friday, 22nd July 2011 – Palazzo Ducale, Sala del Maggior Consiglio, Genoa

Simultaneous translation: English, French, Italian, Spanish

9h30 am

Source: http://www.eldh.eu/de/termine/termin/genoa-2001-2011-69/ weiter...

Death of a demonstrator at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa: no violation

No. 257 of 24 March 2011

Decision of the Court
Article 2 (right to life)
Use of lethal force

The Court – which had had the opportunity to view video footage and photographs of the incident giving rise to the case – noted that the officer who had fired the shots had been confronted with a group of demonstrators conducting an unlawful and very violent attack on the vehicle in which he was stranded. In the Court’s view, he had acted in the honest belief that his own life and physical integrity and those of his colleagues were in danger from the attack to which they were being subjected. Moreover, it was clear from the evidence at the Court’s disposal that the carabiniere had given a warning while holding his weapon in a clearly visible manner, and that he had fired the shots only when the attack had not ceased. In those circumstances, the use of a potentially lethal means of defence such as the firing of shots had been justified.

Source: http://www.duitbase.it/component/k2/item/94-la-corte-edu-assolve-litalia-per-la-morte-di-carlo-giuliani-al-g8-di-genova.html weiter...

(Application no. 23458/02)

JUDGMENT STRASBOURG 24 March 2011

This judgment is final but may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy,
The European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Grand Chamber composed of:
Jean-Paul Costa, President,
Christos Rozakis,
Françoise Tulkens,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Boštjan M. Zupančič,
Nina Vajić,
Elisabeth Steiner,
Alvina Gyulumyan,
Renate Jaeger,
David Thór Björgvinsson,
Ineta Ziemele,
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre,
Ledi Bianku,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Zdravka Kalaydjieva,
Işıl Karakaş,
Guido Raimondi, judges,
and Vincent Berger, Jurisconsult,

Having deliberated in private on 29 September 2010 and on 16 February 2011,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last-mentioned date:

Source: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2011/mar/echr-carlo-giuliani-judgment-mar-11.pdf weiter...

The European Court of Human Rights Thursday cleared Italy of any responsibility for the death of a demonstrator during the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001.

Carlo Giuliani, 23, was shot in the head during violent clashes between police and militant radicals on July 20, 2001. A vehicle drove over his body after the shooting.

The circumstances surrounding his death created an uproar and criticism of the government headed by Silvio Berlusconi.

The judges found that the policeman who fired the fatal shot had “acted in the honest belief that his own life and physical integrity and those of his colleagues were in danger from the attack to which they were being subjected”.

Source: http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/rights-court-clears-italy-over-death-of-g8-demonstrator_138055.html weiter...

CRISIS OR HOPE

Ten years ago hundreds of thousands people of all ages and genders, from all over the world, gathered in Genova to denounce the risks of globalization within neoliberalism. They joined together in protest against G8 leaders’ seeking to convince the world that commoditising everything would bring about welfare for all.

People who took centre stage and demonstrated during the Genova counter-summit were part of a worldwide movement “for a possible different world”. This had its roots both in Seattle in 1999, with the strong alliance between trade unions and grassroots organizations, and before that in Mexico’s Chiapas forest. In January 2001 the movement met in the great World Social Forum of Porto Alegre, Brazil, which gathered citizens, social movements and democratic organizations from all over the world.

This movement argued that the dogma of market deregulation was bound to increase inequalities, exploitation, wars and violence. It would destroy the environment, endanger social relations and even life on earth. Not wealth for all but more physical and cultural walls between the north and south. Not appeasement following the “end of history” but rather a “clash of civilizations”.

Source: http://genova2011.wordpress.com/other-languages/english/ weiter...

We haven’t forgiven the death of Carlo Giuliani. An Italian anarchist born in 1978, he was one of millions of protesters who participated in the Genoa demos against the G8 leaders’ violence. Comrades witnessed his assassination by Italian riot police’s Carabinieri in 20 July 2001.
After nine years, the case ‘Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy’ was referred to the Court’s Grand Chamber of the European Court of ‘Human Rights’. The summary description of socalled ‘Principal facts’, includes: ‘As to the officer who had fired the fatal shot, the judge took the view that he had fired into the air without intent to kill and that he had in any event acted in self-defense in response to the violent attack on him and his colleagues’.

Source: http://325.nostate.net/library/8-325_net1.pdf weiter...

Michael Shane Boyle

»…the last time I was in Italy was in June, more than a month before the protests. At that time, it was already clear that the police were running out of control, getting their excuses ready for a major civil liberties crackdown and setting the stage for extreme violence. Before a single activist had taken to the streets, a preemptive state of emergency had been essentially declared: airports were closed and much of the city cordoned off.
Yet when I was last in Italy all the public discussions focused not on these violations of civil liberties but on the alleged threat posed by activists.«

Naomi Klein, »Getting Used to Violence«

»The double violence of organized representation, which consists in the distortion and shutdown of images by the mass media communication and in the subjugation and striation of the war machine by the state apparatus and its traditional organs of the police and justice, this combination of rigid spectacularization and criminalization overtook the VolxTheaterKarawane in Genoa with full force…«

Gerald Raunig, »Art and Revolution«

Source: http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Manuskripte/Manuskripte_88.pdf weiter...

On 18 May 2010, the third section of Genoa appeal court overturned the acquittal of several high level police officers present at the raid on the Diaz and Pascoli schools during the G8 summit in July 2001. The Diaz school had been made available by the city council as a dormitory for demonstrators, whereas the Pascoli school hosted a media centre, the Genoa Legal Forum, Indymedia and other activist media groups, as well as providing office facilities. One police official who was a defendant in the case, MF, described the scene that he witnessed as a "Mexican butchery". 93 people were arrested, 75 were taken to Bolzaneto where they suffered further violence in custody after the indiscriminate violence they were subjected to in the school (see Statewatch vol. 18 no. 4).

Source: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/jun/03italy-genoa-g8-appeal.htm weiter...

Life is not fair and who has lived enough perfectly knows.
However, sometimes I see something unusual, even in our country.
It so happens that the perpetrators of the violence suffered by many young people on the Diaz school, in July 2001 during the G8 summit in Genoa, have some names.
Not all, some, but in these days is a lot.
Francesco Gratteri was sentenced to four years.
Vincenzo Canterini to five.
Giovanni Luperi to four years.
Spartaco Mortola to three years and eight months.
Gilberto Caldarozzi three years and eight months.
Are they actually guilty?
Are they the only people that have to pay or maybe there is still someone else?
I don’t know, I don’t certainly have any right to judge.
Nevertheless I want to stay on the positive and I advice Berlusconi government to do the same.

Source: http://betweentwosouths.blogspot.com/2010/05/2001-g8-genoa-summit-condemned-police.html weiter...

Italian officials say they have full confidence in policemen convicted by an appeals court over violence at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001.

The officers, who were sentenced to up to five years in prison, are to remain in their posts pending a final appeal.

In an original trial in November 2008, 13 officers were convicted, while 16 – including the most senior officers – were acquitted.

The case concerns a raid in which dozens of protesters were injured.

“These men continue to have the full confidence of the security services and the interior ministry,” said Alfredo Mantovano, the interior ministry’s under-secretary.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10132208.stm weiter...

On 18th May 2010 the court in Genoa sentenced 25 members of police authorities.

In the 2nd instance the court found also high officials guilty that were discharged before in 2008.

Find the sentence as pdf here.

Source: http://www.processig8.org/Udienza_018_Diazap.html

Sentences suggest appeal judges accept that 2001 night raid when many were savagely beaten was planned and covered up

Some of Italy’s most senior police officers have been given jail sentences of up to five years for what the prosecution called a “terrible” attack on demonstrators at the 2001 G8 meeting in Genoa and an attempted, subsequent cover-up.

Victims of the attack, who included several Britons, expressed delight at the ruling, which overturned many of the conclusions reached by the judges at the original trial in 2008. Mark Covell, aged 42 from Reading, who was beaten into a coma, said: “This is beyond my wildest expectations. The Italian judiciary has recognised the truth of what happened. Human rights have finally been respected here. Italians will now recognise their cops do not have immunity. But it has taken nine years, and I was at the end of my tether.”

It is highly unlikely that any of the officers will actually go behind bars. The case has taken so long to reach this stage that most of the offences of which they were accused have since been ‘timed out’ by statutes of limitations.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/19/g8-italian-police-sentenced weiter...

By AED – EDL (European Democratic Lawyers)

The AED-EDL greets with satisfaction the sentence of the Appeal Court in Genoa recognizing the criminal responsibility of all 44 accused of violence and acts of torture committed against the detainees in the Bolzaneto barracks during the G8-summit in 2001 in Genoa.
Due to the prescription of the crimes, only 8 detainees have been condemned to detention and the accused have not suffered an effective punishment for Italy has not yet adopted a law to punish torture in violation of international agreements.
All the accused have been condemned to compensate the civil parties, amongst them also the parents of some victims, as well as according them important provisional sums. The ministry of Interior, of Defense and Justice have been condemned together with the accused.

Download statement (pdf, 67 KB)

Source: email

a group of moscow anarchists attacked cars Italian embassy outside italian school for children of diplomats

Stop Harassing Our Comrades

Since Genova 2001 we have come to understand the oppressive and pro-nazi nature of Italian authorities. The events of this fall-winter once again demonstrate that this is still true. Good and decent people, who have come to protest the anti-human and planet-hostile G8 summit in Italy 2009, became subjects for police repressions a year later (www.gipfelsoli.org/Home/L_Aquila_2009).

As a follow-up, a march against world-wide economic crisis was violently beaten by italian blackshirters riot cops (roma.indymedia.org/node/16959). To add up the pressure on social initiatives and people who try to speak out against the policy that Putin and Berlusconi seem to have agreed upon (i.e., that poor have to pay for the crisis so that rich get richer still), turin police raided local independent media euro-police.noblogs.org/post/2010/02/23/turin-police-raided-radio-blacko.

Source: http://roma.indymedia.org/node/18258 weiter...

On 5 March 2010, Genoa appeal court found that 44 people including police officers, carabinieri officials, prison officers and medical staff deployed in the make-shift detention facility in Bolzaneto army barracks during the G8 summit in July 2001 in Genoa were guilty of abuses suffered by demonstrators arrested in the streets and subsequently held on the premises, overturning the acquittal of 30 of them in the first trial.

252 people from several countries passed through Bolzaneto barracks, 197 of them arrested and 55 held temporarily, many of whom testified willingly in the first trial, reporting an array of violent, demeaning and insulting practices to which they were subjected (see Statewatch vol. 18 no. 4). 15 officers were convicted in the first trial, and the highest sentences passed were of five years (one), three years and two months (one) and two years and four months (two), and the ten sentences for convictions entailing custodial sentences of a year or less were suspended.

Source: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/mar/08italy-genoa-g8-appeals.htm weiter...

At 2001’s G8 Summit in Genoa police confronted anti-globalization demonstrators

An Italian court has confirmed the convictions of 15 police officers, prison guards and doctors who were found guilty of the ill-treatment of detainees in the Bolzaneto detention facility in Genoa in 2001 during protests against the G8 summit. The court also overturned the initial acquittals of another 29 people who have now been convicted of ill-treatment.

The Genoa court upheld the July 2008 convictions when the 15 were sentenced to between five months and five years imprisonment for their role in the ill-treatment of detainees.

“Although the motives of the judgment are not yet known, the fact that the appeal judge broadly upheld the outcome of the previous trial confirms that grave human rights violations were committed nearly a decade ago,” said Halya Gowan, director of Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme.

Source: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/convictions-abuse-during-genoa-g8-protests-upheld-2010-03-08 weiter...

(ANSA) - Genoa, October 7 - Former national police chief Gianni De Gennaro was acquitted here on Wednesday on charges that he pressured a ex-Genoa police chief to commit perjury in a trial over police brutality at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in 2001.
Also acquitted on the same charges was the ex-head of the Genoa branch of Digos security police, Spartaco Mortola. The prosecution had asked for a two-year sentence for De Gennaro, who is currently the head of Italy`s intelligence services, and 16 months for Mortola.
Both men were accused of persuading Francesco Colucci, chief of police in Genoa in 2001, to change his testimony about a night raid on the Diaz school, which was being used by G8 protestors as sleeping quarters.

Source: http://www.lifeinitaly.com/node/8069 weiter...