Demonstrators Penned / Mass Arrests in Lausanne

Have just spoken to my friend whose camp was surrounded by police, and has subsequently been taken off by police (for doing nothing!). Is now being detained in a police base basement. No toilets, no food. She reckons about 200 of them are detained and handcuffed. They are only being allowed water when they have it poured into their mouths and are expected to wee in fnt of the police. They aren't being told much but are assuming they will have their details taken, papers checked and (hopefully!) be released. Apparently the police are living up to their (bad) reputation!

ahh.. sounds just like America!!

I just want to add that the group feeling after the surrounding by the Italian police was very strong. Although there was some panic and uncertanty about what was going to happen, there was a good communication going on, thanks to allmost everybody. Very soon there was concensus about not going one by one and being checked, but staying together on the ground and try to keep camera's running. We communicated to the police that we did this because they had no reason to take people with and also because people couldn't reach their papers as we were blocked from the illegal camp by the lake. The atmosphere was nice and strong and people kept shouting slogans, singing songs, telling jokes, keeping eachother informed and doing funny acts towards the police. I dit a quite humiliating act towards them, for which I thought they would beat the shit out of me. But when I got taken with, I was just treated as rough as the others. Later I heard that the police went away, just after I'd been taken with, after people came to the front, holding up their hands and begging to be taken away. There was a lack of capacity in prison. I have to say that the people who voluntarily gave themselves in could be seen as unsolidair, but personally I think they saved time for people who didn't have papers at that time and place, so they didn't get in trouble.
When it was my turn I was roughly taken with, handcuffed with tie-rips and thrown into a green army(?) truck with nine others. We were being watched by two French Military policemen and brought to a very big prison in the north of Lausanne. The others guys thought it was called Blecherette, but they were not sure. It was heavily guarded by the army, all soldiers were carrying big, loaded semiautomatic(?) guns apart from their small revolver(?). I could also see two green (army?) helicopters standing there and I could hear them flying on and off during the eight hours they kept us. While we were waiting in the van the MP's got out. Two of us managed to get out of the tierips and freed the others with my medical scissors and kitchen knife, that were immediately after taken from me. They promised me to give them back when I would be released, which they didn't even after a lot of serious requests. We were still keeping the atmosphere good and the people in the other vans as well, I heard. After being in the van for about three hours we were led into the heavily secured prison, being body searched and passport checked etc. We were kept in a one person cell with three or four people, being refused any water and food. When they'd copied all our papers etc, we were released and brought back to a parking place near the camp after midnight. People were waiting for us with a form to fill in about the event, to start a campain. After all they took away our civil rights for eight hours for a lausy and unnessecary identity check. We went back to the illegal camp by the lake, which was not raided. Just to be sure we got up before daylight and went away. From people I heard that it was not raided after all, which I expected, but you never know how stupid they can be... After all I heard they were still looking for 17 people. The latenight swim in the lake was the best part of it all. Love and agression, Will the Wingerd