Press release
PublixtheatreCaravan
Tuesday, August 14, 2001

Most of the activists of the PublixTheatreCaravan will be released soon. According to their lawyer, the applications for release of the members of the Caravan were accepted. Only the assessments of arrest for those activists whose applications were declared invalid due to formal errors are still pending. (…) A positive response to these assessments is expected.

Despite the enormous psychological pressure which had weighed heavily on the activists during the last 3 weeks, they succeeded to make an impression on the italian judges with their statements. Besides other things, their statements led the judges to ask questions in an interested manner. In this way, they at least gained a correct impression on the events concerning the Caravan. The members of the Caravan where able to give precise information about their objectives and their political and artistic forms of articulation to the judges.

Only one day before the assessment of arrest, the male members of the caravan under arrest in Alessandria had stated: “They say they found weapons with us. Our weapon is solidarity and Theatre is our form of expression.”

Birgit Hebein, spokesperson of the support group, said after the hearing: For the time being, it is important that the activists of the Caravan meet their relatives and friends. After that, we will think about further steps. For example, what needs to be clarified is the role of Austria in criminalising the Caravan.

During the second hearing, it had again become obvious that the investigation files had received only incriminating material about the Caravan. Obviously, the Austrian institutions had hesitated too long to transfer relieving material to the Italian institutions. In such way, the accusation that the caravan was part of the so-called “black block” had even been reinforced by Austria.
Existing reservations of the Austrian state-police and hints from Austria about an ominous ‘black list’ which contained four of the participants of the caravan had contributed their bit to the accusations.

Ways to deal with the criminalisation of people critical towards the government are going to be part of a press-conferene on Thursay, 16.8., 10am in Vienna, with Dr. Wilfried Embacher, lawyer of the Caravan and Birgit Hebein, spokesperson of the Caravan.

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Tanya Bednar
PublixTheatre Caravan Press coordination
www.no-racism.net/nobordertour