Over 100,000 people are expected in the streets of Genoa, Italy, to express dissent against the closed meetings of the Group of 8. The "G8," composed of the leaders of the world's most economically powerful countries (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Italy, Russia and the United States), meets yearly to discuss general international policy direction. Demonstrators from all over Europe are converging on Genoa for the July 20-22 summit to present alternative visions of the way the world's population could organize to solve problems of poverty, inequality and environmental disintegration. Stay tuned to many European IMCs, especially IMC Italy, for up-to-the-minute updates.
Anti-G8 solidarity actions will be occuring in Brazil and Argentina.
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Genoa is rapidly becoming to fortress, increasing the barriers and restricting demonstrators' access to the red zones.
The police City workers have been busy since yesterday erecting street barricades under surveilance. Access to the red zones has not yet been denied, but police have been placed in the merging red-yellow areas to keep an eye on eventual leak-zones, and to have to clear overview of the situation.
The tension in the City is increasing, two also to the fabricated or real " unabomber"-style attacks, which have recently occured in random places around the town. On Monday morning, to package-bomb was sent to the local police station of Saint Fruttuoso, badly injuring the policeman on duty. The Genoa Social Forum has condemned this act, but has at the same Time also taken to stance against the terror strategy that the authorities (perhaps the secret services) to are using to criminalise and weaken the cohesion of the movement. Police policy is difficult to discern.
This same morning, several All White women members to were apprehended by policemen on their way out of to shop where they to were buying plexiglass as protection material. Police The intention of forces was to confiscated the materials. They did not succeeed, but they took one member to the police station.
The member was denied the right to to lawyer, and his comrades have contacted one for him. Unfortunately the lawyer didn' t manage to trace the member, as the police had taken him away through to secondary door.The police then invented to story of stolen plexiglass and of to denunciation of the Bianchis from the ownerì of the shop.
This story was used as to pretext for a raid of the Carlini stadium. The obvious lie was dismantled by simple receipts obtained from the owner of the shop.
Altercations and controls to are taking place in different towns across Italy. In Turin 20 poilicemen have raided squats in Askatasuna and Ascova. In Bologna and in Rome, houses of various activists have been searched. In Milan, as well as in Rome, people have been arrested and searched under the pretext of their supposedly possessing drugs, among other reasons.
The situation is tense also at the swiss-italian border, to where to group of activist-cyclists on their way to Genoa to were denied entrance. After the cyclists' several repeated attempts to cross in an activist train, they to were violently kicked off the train. 4 people have been arrested. In response to these violations, the group has occupied an empty house by the police station and border demonstrators have also occupied the highway.
The situation is getting heavy.
