Police Raid Summit Foes' Headquarters

By Alessandra Rizzo

Associated Press Writer

Sunday, July 22, 2001; 8:48 a.m. EDT

GENOA, Italy –– In a lightning strike, police raided protesters' headquarters early Sunday, arresting nearly 100 people, including three Americans, as a summit of world leaders ended and demonstrators began heading home.

Those detained in the predawn raid at a school two miles from the summit site included 61 people who were taken to hospitals, police said, adding that some of them had been hurt in earlier confrontations in the streets.

The U.S. consulate in Rome said an American official had been in touch with some of the U.S. citizens arrested or injured, but neither police nor the consulate would identify them. All those arrested in the raid were charged with possession of firebombs and with criminal association in order to commit vandalism, police said.

The others included 40 Germans, 15 Italians, 13 Spaniards, as well as citizens from Britain, Switzerland, Poland, Turkey, Canada, Sweden, Greece, Lithuania and New Zealand, the police said.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said he had not been advised of the raid until after it was over, when he was informed by the interior minister. He said the police move suggested that protest organizers "might have given cover to these violent people."

Police seized two sledgehammers, 12 jackknives, one pickax, a few short-bladed knives, several long pieces of jagged wood, two bottles for making firebombs, as well as black woolen hoods, a wig, helmets and about a dozen gas masks, displaying them to reporters at police headquarters.

Seemingly innocent items were also confiscated, including sunglasses, tissues, rubber gloves like those used by paramedics, maps of the city, bandages, and even a suntan lotion. Cameras and cell phones were also confiscated.

Protesters said police seized documents, computer files and videotapes of the demonstration, but police denied that. "Everything that was seized is on the table," Sgalla said.

Also on display was also a police jacket with a five-inch rip on the chest. Police said one of protesters tried to knife a policeman, but the officer was unhurt because he wore a bulletproof vest.

Protesters said dozens of them were beaten up by police during the raid, which took place roughly two miles from the ancient palace where President Bush and the leaders of Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada and Russia had been meeting.

Authorities were on a heightened state of alert through the early morning hours Sunday. Helicopters circled overhead and police cars raced through the cobbled stone streets in the summit security area, their sirens blaring, and police – some in gas masks and holding shields – formed a column in front of the summit site.

Calm had been restored well before the leaders entered into their third day of meetings.

A second school which houses medical and legal personnel of the Genoa Social Forum, as well as its media center, was also raided, witnesses said.

"They just went bang into the building – people screamed," said eyewitness Caroline Terzaghi, 38, a protest organizer. "They made people lie on the floor, they beat us up, they were throwing computers around, they were hitting everyone. There was blood everywhere."

On Sunday morning one school was empty, except for a few demonstrators sleeping on the floor or in sleeping bags.

A sign outside read: "Don't clean up the blood," which stained the wall and stairs of the three-story school.

Pope John Paul II, speaking from his lakeside summer residence, said Sunday he felt "pain and sadness for the hostility that erupted" at the summit.

"Violence is not the path to reach a fair solution to the current problems," said the pope, who is to meet with Bush on Monday.

Bush was sympathetic to the concerns of peaceful protesters, such as calls for easing the debt burdens of poor nations, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Those protesters, Fleischer said, "couldn't have a better friend than George W. Bush and the United States. For the anarchists and those who are committed to violence, I don't think anything will appease them."

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On the Net:

Genoa Social Forum: http://www.genoa-g8.org

Genoa summit site: http://www.genoa-g8.it/eng/index.html

© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

This is the pathetic coverage by the US media....how can we get the real truth out in the national media?

from MSNBC........

email congressGENOA, Italy, July 22 — Italian police raided

the headquarters Sunday of the umbrella

group behind anti-capitalist riots against

the Group of Eight summit in Genoa and

seized computer discs, said activists, who

said six people were injured in the

operation.

from CNN.com

GENOA, Italy -- Italian police have

broken into the headquarters of the

anti-capitalist group involved in

protests at the G8 summit in

Genoa, Italy.

Around 10 activists from Italy, Spain,

France and Britain were detained

during the midnight raid and driven off

in a police van, legal sources told

Reuters.

European Parliament member Luisa

Morgantini told Reuters a police van

rammed a gate to get into the grounds

of the school where the Genoa Social

Forum (GSF) had set up its

headquarters and living quarters.

The raid came after riot police

launched canisters of tear gas at about

2,000 protesters trying to breach a safety perimeter on Saturday afternoon and

after one man was killed during demonstrations on Friday outside the Group of

Eight summit.

Spokesman for GSF, Vittorio Agnoletto, said

people in the building were treated roughly

during the midnight raid and about 20 of them

needed hospital treatment for minor injuries.

A police spokesman said officers seized iron

bars, baseball bats and bricks that they said had

been used during the first two days of protests.

RAI state television said 50 people were detained

and 66 people injured. Police spokesman Mario

Viola did not confirm the number of arrests, but

said many of those listed as injured had been hurt

earlier. Protesters said dozens of people were

arrested and dozens of others beaten up by

police.

"Police entered this evening with search warrants

and took computer discs," Enzo Lefebe, a

freelance journalist working for GSF, told

Reuters.