I’ve just been deported from Genoa with two other activists. They gave us no reason for our deportation, they pulled us over (out of a planeload of activists) at passport control, just after we landed. We discovered what we all had in common (I’d not met the other two before) was being arrested for sitting in the road outside faslane nuclear base in february 2000 though 2 of us were never charged, so we have no criminal record.

We were held for 7 hours in immigration- held prisoner, escorted to the toilet etc. We were not allowed to see a lawyer, even when one was sent to see us by the Genoa Social Forum.
We heard one of their immigration officials tell a British cop there that we weren’t allowed to use our mobile phone because “the problem is they will call the Genoa Social forum” (translated from italian).

We were told by two British cops (pure brutes) who were out there oppressing us with their italian counterparts that the idea that people had human rights, such as the right to have legal advice, while in the “immigration zone “ (the no man’s land between disembarking and entering Italian soil) was a “utopian concept”

One of the British brute squad told me “If you give me any more lip, you’ll see what you get.”

Italian immigration officials accompanied us, with our passports in their possession, until we reached immigration in the UK. We were still very much their prisoners on the plane and at stanstead, which was surreal.

The power these bullies have is frightening. We were white, we spoke English, it made me realise how awful it must be for refugees.

At one point one of the Italian police captains asked me what I was writing about and I told him about the oppressive, fascist treatment by the Italian immigration authorities.
Well, he got very upset at being described as a fascist and he responded by ordering me to stand up, pick up my bag….. stay standing for three minutes, put my bag down again….clearly a misdiagnosis, not a fascist at all…….