Evian G8 Solidarity Financial Call
Legal Support Groups | 07.07.2003 18:51 | Evian G8 | Repression | World
This a text to inform you about the police abuse during the protests against the G8 summit in Evian. It also lists the groups working on the legal follow up, and the bank accounts set up for the solidarity campaigns.
FINANCIAL CALL OUT
During the G8 in Evian, Geneva, Lausanne and Annemasse there was widespread police repression against all forms of action. This repression is not uncommon in the history of social movements, but we shouldn't start to accept it as normal. Neither should we be unprepared for it in future years. Now more than ever we must react against police repression in all its forms.
We need to follow up on the general and specific cases from the G8 to ensure that the police (Swiss, French, German...) do not get away with their actions, and that their actions are seen as connected to wider global repression, by the press as well as the public.
Police repression in the G8 included:
* Cutting the rope across a motorway bridge upon which two activists were suspended, resulting in one person, Martin Shaw, falling over 20 metres into a shallow stream, sustaining severe injuries. The other, Gesine, was saved by activists on the bridge.
* Guy Smallman, a freelance photographer, was severely injured when a stunt grenade exploded directly on his leg. He has not yet fully recovered.
* Police attacked marchers with tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets. Several people were hospitalised with burns, and injuries from bullets and grenades hitting them.
* Police groups disguised as black block ran through the city, beating and shooting rubber bullets at demonstrators and passersby. The Geneva legal collective has gathered over 50 witnesses to these events.
* Police illegally detained over 400 people without charges in Bourdonnette, the activist campground in Lausanne for several hours. People refused to identify themselves and were held in a police circle for several hours in the heat. Several people were arrested and all the tents and bags were searched.
* In Geneva the social center, l'Usine with the IMC office was raided by a police 'black block' group.
* Police shot stunt grenades directly at a pregnant woman. One grenade exploded under a child's stroller.
* Street medics were directly targeted and nearly all were arrested.
* Human rights observers also suffered violence and unjust treatment; one suffered a sprained elbow under a German policeman's baton, another was handcuffed and forced to go home. They shot another in the leg. Police tore off armbands and badges that identified human rights observers as such.
* Journalists were also targeted by police. They were stopped, and film confiscated or destroyed.
* Some arrests were very brutal with painholds, fingers in eyes, ears and noses, and rough handcuffing.
* Police refused during the whole time to give out lists of detainees, as agreed prior to the demos. They refused to give their badge numbers and denied phonecalls to detainees. Cells were overcrowded. In prison some people were illegally filed, insulted, in some cases women had to piss in front of male soldiers, several were kept handcuffed in policevans for hours, refused toilets and water.
This is just a summary of the actions by the police, and the fact that
no-one was killed this time is down to luck. Police repression in all its forms must be challenged, and the individuals and police forces themselves need to be held responsible. The wider repression of acitivists shows an alarming trend, with these incidents becoming commonplace. Recent targeted killings of demostrators and human shields from the occupied territories to Papua-Guniea or
Argentina together with the killing of Carlo Guiliani in Genoa (for which the police have been prosecuted but found innocent) show that around the world the political enclosure and violent repression of the antineoliberal social movements continues to escalate realively to the level of police impunity.
Different groups are working on the legal follow up of the G8 summit:
- Legal support Lausanne
- Legal support Gen
During the G8 in Evian, Geneva, Lausanne and Annemasse there was widespread police repression against all forms of action. This repression is not uncommon in the history of social movements, but we shouldn't start to accept it as normal. Neither should we be unprepared for it in future years. Now more than ever we must react against police repression in all its forms.
We need to follow up on the general and specific cases from the G8 to ensure that the police (Swiss, French, German...) do not get away with their actions, and that their actions are seen as connected to wider global repression, by the press as well as the public.
Police repression in the G8 included:
* Cutting the rope across a motorway bridge upon which two activists were suspended, resulting in one person, Martin Shaw, falling over 20 metres into a shallow stream, sustaining severe injuries. The other, Gesine, was saved by activists on the bridge.
* Guy Smallman, a freelance photographer, was severely injured when a stunt grenade exploded directly on his leg. He has not yet fully recovered.
* Police attacked marchers with tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets. Several people were hospitalised with burns, and injuries from bullets and grenades hitting them.
* Police groups disguised as black block ran through the city, beating and shooting rubber bullets at demonstrators and passersby. The Geneva legal collective has gathered over 50 witnesses to these events.
* Police illegally detained over 400 people without charges in Bourdonnette, the activist campground in Lausanne for several hours. People refused to identify themselves and were held in a police circle for several hours in the heat. Several people were arrested and all the tents and bags were searched.
* In Geneva the social center, l'Usine with the IMC office was raided by a police 'black block' group.
* Police shot stunt grenades directly at a pregnant woman. One grenade exploded under a child's stroller.
* Street medics were directly targeted and nearly all were arrested.
* Human rights observers also suffered violence and unjust treatment; one suffered a sprained elbow under a German policeman's baton, another was handcuffed and forced to go home. They shot another in the leg. Police tore off armbands and badges that identified human rights observers as such.
* Journalists were also targeted by police. They were stopped, and film confiscated or destroyed.
* Some arrests were very brutal with painholds, fingers in eyes, ears and noses, and rough handcuffing.
* Police refused during the whole time to give out lists of detainees, as agreed prior to the demos. They refused to give their badge numbers and denied phonecalls to detainees. Cells were overcrowded. In prison some people were illegally filed, insulted, in some cases women had to piss in front of male soldiers, several were kept handcuffed in policevans for hours, refused toilets and water.
This is just a summary of the actions by the police, and the fact that
no-one was killed this time is down to luck. Police repression in all its forms must be challenged, and the individuals and police forces themselves need to be held responsible. The wider repression of acitivists shows an alarming trend, with these incidents becoming commonplace. Recent targeted killings of demostrators and human shields from the occupied territories to Papua-Guniea or
Argentina together with the killing of Carlo Guiliani in Genoa (for which the police have been prosecuted but found innocent) show that around the world the political enclosure and violent repression of the antineoliberal social movements continues to escalate realively to the level of police impunity.
Different groups are working on the legal follow up of the G8 summit:
- Legal support Lausanne
- Legal support Gen
Legal Support Groups