G8: Wave of arrests in Italy

Publié le 6 juillet 2009 par la Rédaction

At least 21 activists in various cities affected

Universities occupied for protest

At least 21 italian activists were arrested by political police “Digos” this morning. 16 were taken to prison, five have to stay under house arrest.

The police attack affected activists from Torino, Padova, Bologna and Naples, among them known members of social centres. One of the arrested was followed by the police up to L’Aquila, where the G8 summit should take place. In Naples several objects were raided and searched.

Under the pretext of “preventive arrests” the police used the heavy protests that were organized against the “G8 university summit” in may in Torino. The measures hit members of the so called “Area Antagonista”.

To protest and show solidarity, students occupied the rectorate of the university in Venice, followed by an occupation at the Sapienza university in Rome.

“We will not go”, explains Francesco, one of the activists, “until our university is not positioning itself towards the arrests”.

Meanwhile the militarization of the “red zone” started. With army jets and surveillance drones (“Predator”) the police tries to control and handle protest and resistance. 16 roads in the area of the summit are equipped with checkpoints of Carabinieri, police, army and Guardia di Finanza. The road between the airport Preturo and the police barracks Coppito, where the summit should start on wednesday, is blocked.

On friday the police arrested two men near Viterbo, that were accused of being member of an “anarcho-insurrectionalist movement”. They should have been planning to sabotage trains by placing “horse shaped iron bars” at the railway cables to bring the locomotives to halt.

On saturday 700 people demonstrated in Berlin against G8. The demonstration was attacked by the police, at least four activists were arrested. The organizers critizise in a press release, that the police “searched the escalation”.