First petition is here:
 http://www.petitiononline.com/wave/petition.html


This is the second one:

Original Italian petition:  http://petizionearrestig8.noblogs.org/


OPEN LETTER ABOUT ITALIAN STUDENTS ARRESTED FOR THE G8

May the civil consciousness wake up, freedom of dissent must be defended!!!


Alarming signals about the health condition of democratic safeguards and freedom rights in Italy were added in rapid succession in those days. The ones who are now paying for this are the young girls and young boys affected by the measures of deprivation of personal liberty in a context that should be among the most protected ones in a state of law: we refer to the expression of dissent, even the most radical. With amazing timing, in the week of the second G8 summit chaired by Silvio Berlusconi, after the notorious one who took place eight years ago in Genoa, detention orders were implemented against 21 participants in the student protest of the “Onda Anomala” against the "G8 University Summit” in Turin, that had taken place two months before. The day after, during the first protests against the meeting of Heads of State and Government, on the occasion of the transit in Rome of the international delegations going towards the seat of the Summit in Coppito, in Abruzzo (the region recently devastated by an earthquake), detention orders affected 8 of the 36 young people stopped during a demonstration that had started from the third public university of the capital.
A march bottled up by the police without any reason, when the demonstrators were about to dismiss and reach the demonstration convened at the “Università la Sapienza” against the arrests occurred the day before. The march didn’t do anything against things or people, and apparently, no-one charged the people who are under investigation with an offence for causing any injury to anybody. While among the people arrested, the ones who have been detained in prison, in a state of arrest and even solitary confinement, are known for being involved in daily and transparent political and social activities. This is exactly what happened with the arrests of some representatives of the students movement,
made the day before in Italy.
It is not a real democracy the one in which the organized political activity and the open expression of oneself opinion, even addressed to the deepest change in the established order, become a reason for repression and restriction of individual liberty. Neither can be considered undamaged, full and really protected the guarantees of democratic viability in a country, when it’s authority wields forms of generalized repression of dissent of the collective disputes of dissent, especially in such particular occasions such as an international summit of governments. As a matter of fact the expression of dissent is part of the normal dialectic in a democratic society.
If the repression of the "radical" positions is systematic and continuous, if the person who is expressing is also systematically and continually subjected to the application of the most extreme measures of restriction of his individual liberty, the conscience s of those who care about democracy should be worry. They should worry about the fate of democracy and freedom of all: it starts from radical positions, but we can not predict where this will stop.
If the authority transforms itself into action of political repression, every democratic conscience must assert itself, because the civil vigilance can not be at a fixed time: if it close its eyes it resign itself to lose a share of democracy, a bit of freedom. And all of us are going to pay the costs, since democracy and freedom are indivisible.
We react with a convinced and intensive political, social and cultural mobilization to the damage that democracy and freedom have suffered because of the repression occurred in these days. We are not going to leave alone these young guys. We denounce, everywhere, the serious responsibility taken by those who wanted, arranged and put into practice these episodes.


May the civil consciousness wake up, right now!

The undersigned.

Original Italian petition:
 http://petizionearrestig8.noblogs.org/

Franca Rame e Dario Fo, Gianni Vattimo, Giacomo Marramao, Luisa Capelli, Giovanni Cerri
Alessandra Tibaldi (assessora al Lavoro della Regione Lazio), Massimiliano Smeriglio (assessore al Lavoro della Provincia di Roma), Jacopo Di Cesare, Stefania Donelli, Elena Spadin, Anna Simone, Sergio Falcone, Adriani Epifani, Andrea Fumagalli, Lorenzo Santinell, Claudio Panella, Maria Isabella D'Autilia, Mariangela Spera, Angela Baldi, Michele Vollaro, Clara Fasol, Erica Giannelli, Giancarlo Venturi, Carlo Effe, Piera Mango, Sara Speranza, Emidio Speranza, Sabina Donelli

Movements:
Rdb-Cub, Confederazione Cobas, Coordinamento cittadino di Lotta per la Casa - Roma, Action - Roma, Blocchi Precari Metropolitani - Roma, Rete delle/degli Indipendenti, Comitato madri per Roma città aperta, HorusLiberato2.0 - Roma, LOA Acrobax - Roma, Esc Atelier Occupato - Roma, CoMUniA - Roma, Sapienza in Onda, Studentesse e Studenti Roma 3 in lotta contro il G8 - Infoxoa - USI AIT - Circolo Arci Island PG - Associazione Sindacale BioS/S.Precario - ChainWorkers - Valverde Social Forum

Original Italian petition:
 http://petizionearrestig8.noblogs.org/