Genoa Riots (20k picture)

Victor

http://images.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/0701/genoa_riots.jpg

Are things getting out of hand? These appear to be M16 rifles with M203 attachments (or similar) for firing CS / tear gas. The M16s do not have magagzines fitted

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

[This message has been edited by Victor (edited 22-07-2001).]

Winning Hand

To the untrained eye (mine) they look like HK G3s, certainly fits in with euro police forces.

I notice that one of the protestors has been killed, one down 149,999 to go .

.ak

I think they look like the American Civilian version of the M16... I forget the name. Armalite or something of the sort. Those look pretty much like M203 grenade launchers allright... I think they're the only grenade weapons they'd be equiped with in that piticular area, so I don't think they're using live ammo... Just smoke/tear grenades.

Heh, maybe I should go over there in my riot gear and kick some a-hole! BOOYAH!

-Dark-Angel-

Magwitch

I am not that well up on American small arms so will not talk about it.

I would however like to say something of the (thinking of a good word...hmmmm) IRISH FOOLS who went to Genoa to protest.

Italy has a serious history of violence between left an right wing. It is an Italian national issue (Red Army Faction etc). Protestors from around Europe (inc. Ireland) flocked to join what was always going to be a serious situation between the Italian police and Italian radicals. They lent their support to groups who have bombed and killed in Italy in the name of Communism for decades.

I cannot condone their blinkered actions anymore than I could if they came to Ireland and joined a Sinn Fein rally that got out of hand and destroyed property throughout Dublin. One "Irish Activist" (code word for middle class moron) was arrested prior to the riot for carrieing a lethal weapon (she had a Swiss Army Knife in her backpack) which immediatly showed they were going bright-eyed and bushy-tailed into a situation they really knew nothing about. They have through their stupidity and longing to gain some credibility contributed to the prolonging of a violent tradition in Italy, which is and should be an issue for Italians only.

From this perspective the Italian police are entirely right to use force to supress and disperse non-democratic radicals and their foreign "fair weather" friends. The death in question seemed an accident but even if it were not the Italian government are not going to punish a policeman for talking out someone who thinks their continued violence is safe because international film crews are present.

What has been noticible is that police casualties always out weighed the protestors casualties. Now however that is changing. The anti-capitolist movement has allowed violence to be used in its name (making no serious efforts to stop it) and now as predicted their agenda has been hijacked. European police forces are under no illusion as to who comes to visit their towns.

What has developed is that to be "anti-Globilisation" is to be "anti-Capitolist". This trajedy has insured that the legitimate message of anti-Globalism has been lost.

po0k

just one thing i noticed in regard the death of the protester.....
In the Irish news recently it has been stated teh the police 'shot' the protestor.
On the night in question I happened to be watching HTV and heard, from a reporter in Genoa, that the police did aim CS gas grenades at peoples heads....albeit not at point-blank range. And they usually come off with a bang on the head or are able to stop it with their hands if they see it in time. The lad who died (intentionally not saying he was killed) didn't see the grenade coming towards him and it struck him on the back of the head, I think knocking him unconcious. That alone did not cause his death. he was subsequently driven over by a police van, though I am sceptical towards the claims by activists that it was intentional. it could very easily have been totally by accident as I imagine there was quite a lot of smoke and gas around making it difficult to see him prehaps.
Anyways RTÉ news are stating that he was shot by the police, and don't mention anything else about what happened, which is in my opinion very biased as little information can be worse then no information.
It pays to read the same news from different sources

Shinji

Actually, the chap was shot. The incident report tells a fairly simple story - crowds of protestors had been doing the whole thing of surrounding police land rovers and battering them with bricks and so on, and in this instance had basically "cornered" one and were bashing at the screens over the windows with bricks and pieces of pavement. One of the window screens was pulled off, and the chap who ended up dead tried to batter something (a pavement flag I think) through it at the chap inside. Naturally enough the guy inside defended himself - pulled out a gun and shot the rioter and pretty much point blank range.

The body was later rolled over by the landrover as it "escaped" the protestors.

This is the report as it was filed with the Italian police and corroborated by several sources - about five different versions appeared on the news initially but by late last night everyone seemed to be singing from the same hymnsheet.

Frankly, it doesn't sound like much of a waste. I can only hope he didn't have a chance to reproduce before being hauled out of the gene pool.

DadaKopf

They've taken it away (thank God) but www.resist.org.uk had, on it's opening page, a photograph of Carlo Giuliani, the guy who was shot in the face with the CS cannister. The photo pretty much showed a blunt kind of wound in the back of his head so chances are, it was a CS cannister and not a bullet. Either way, somebody got killed and people will have to ask themselves whether the death is justified and whether more deaths are justified to serve the "revoluzione" and all that jazz. It's all pretty perplexing - it's nigh on impossible for any one person to actually strike on a proper level of analysis, drawing proper conclusions about the situation. I honestly don't think a revolution is possible in today's world - proplelike that are harking back to old-time styles of revolt which don't necessarily apply anymore. Talk about nostalgia.

The strangest thing is that the conservatives and the liberals etc. are arguing the same points with different language. It's really weird - hard to know what's going on. If anything, part of this whole movement is a reaction to homogeny.

solo1

The threat of democracy is real.

Victor

Amnesty concerned at killing of G8 protester

<snip>

Amnesty [International] was also concerned about allegations of indiscriminate assaults by police on nonviolent protesters, journalists and people unconnected with the demonstrations.

Amnesty said it was greatly disturbed by reports that during a raid by police on the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum, an umbrella protest group, officers subjected individuals to deliberate and gratuitous beatings.

"The allegations of gratuitous violence and violations of detainees' rights by law enforcement officials must be investigated promptly, thoroughly and impartially", the Amnesty statement said.

Full story:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2001/0722/breaking39.htm

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An opinion voiced today was that some trouble makers went to Genoa with the objective of getting someone killed. All the better that the police did the actual killing.

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

Victor

Truncheons rained down on me in the battle of Genoa
by John Elliott, Genoa

MY mistake was climbing up on a wall to get a better view of the battle between protesters and police struggling to contain them in Genoa as world leaders held the G8 summit nearby.

I was taking in the infernal scene of a water cannon truck cleaving through clouds of tear gas when I felt a massive blow to the back of my head. For a second my vision whited out. I had been hit by a police truncheon.

"Giornalista inglese!" I shouted at the dozen police who, clad in full riot gear, were running towards me. My mind was reeling. More truncheon blows rained on me. "This is a mistake. They'll stop soon," I kept thinking.

They didn't. Since I had joined a band of demonstrators as an undercover reporter perhaps it was not surprising. Two policemen dragged me along the ground, shouted at me in Italian and then hit me some more. My cycling helmet disintegrated under their blows. Truncheons whacked my back, arms and shins.

They dragged me over railway lines towards a signal box where I was ordered to put my head on a steel rail. I tried to obey, unable to believe this was happening. Gripped by fresh impulses of violence, they started kicking my head, back and legs.

Full story

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/

Click on link for "Truncheons rained down on me in the battle of Genoa".

[Please note the The Sunday Times has restrictions on links to its webpages]

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While calling this typical of the treatment of journalists by the police would be wholly unfair, there were a number of incidents where the police engaged in disproportionate / gratuitous violence against journalists, non-violent demonstrators, members of the public and journalists.

The police did not have identifying numbers on their uniforms, as used by other riot squads. Apparently, the only identifying marks were piece of black and white electrical tape on the backs of helmets, presumably indicating rank. For comparison the RUC use one letter and two numbers an the back of the helmet.

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

[This message has been edited by Victor (edited 22-07-2001).]

Victor

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Dark-Angel:
I think they're the only grenade weapons they'd be equiped with in that piticular area, so I don't think they're using live ammo... Just smoke/tear grenades.</font>

Live footage from Sky News yesterday, showed a large number of Police using dedicated launchers (presumably cable of other type of round) similar to the HK69A1 40mm which fires "(including CS, HE, AP, nonlethal, and flares)" 'nonlethal' most likely means a plastic bullet.

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

[This message has been edited by Victor (edited 22-07-2001).]

Magwitch

Victor, The journalist whom you quoted did state in his article tha he was "under cover" as a protester. The Italian police did kick the hell out of him but he did intentionally go into a hot spot as a protester where police were being attacked. His plaintive crys are no more than hurt liberal whinging and almost completely avoid any detailed reference to the extremism on show by the protesters (with whom he seems to think he has Kudos). It was at best a sensationalist bit of writing and at worst Journalism as uninformed hype-mongering .

Magwitch

p.s. in the first post The M16s do not have magagzines fitted , all standard infantry weapons capable of firing baton or grenades use blank rounds as propelent so regarless of what weapon it was (subsequent posts) a magazine is not necesary. As standard a "blank" propellent bullet is supplied with the round (usually comes inserted in the base of the projectile, to be extracted then fired from the weapon to power the muzzle fitted projectile).

I do however confess ingnorance as to the firing method used by dedicated tear gas and stun grenade guns. But I hope that cleared something up.

Von

The Sunday Times is not a "liberal" paper, it's conservative, and the hack in question was only trying to do his job. Had he not been attacked by the police and dragged off to a station, he might have got a chance to report on the activities of the rioting extremists.

More importantly, Paul got kicked out of the Big Brother house.

Lucy_la_morte

Shouldn't post pictures like that, you'll make some of the CS lads drool.

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It's just a tail, but I'm sort of attached to it.

Lucy la morte.

Lex_Diamonds

LOL! Your right there Lucy, gotta, er, go for a ****.

Anyway, the fact is that the Police are human too, they would be feeling rage, fear etc and it is only to be expected that they would strike back at the protesters.

The guy who was trapped in that land rover was probably scared half to death, I dont blame him for using deadly force.

bonkey

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Von:
The Sunday Times is not a "liberal" paper, it's conservative, and the hack in question was only trying to do his job. Had he not been attacked by the police and dragged off to a station, he might have got a chance to report on the activities of the rioting extremists.
</font>

You feel the police should leave alone every protestor who shouts our their innocence ? Riot dispersion tactics are used to break up the crowds when it ceases to be peaceful. The innocents flee ASAP. Those who remain are considered to be those who want to take on the police - they are the legitimate targets. He stayed. If he was an innocent, he should have been long gone. Climbing a wall for a better view doesnt make you innocent. It makes you a potential bombardier looking for a vantage point. Personally, I think the police were justified in their actions.

I am not saying that the police are not a bit "trigger-happy", but once conflict commences, anyone not wishing to get caught in it should run the flock away. El Journalista didnt.

If you play with fire, expect to get burned.

jc

TwoShedsJackson

The guy was a moron. If I went out into the street now and threw a fire extinguisher at a cop, I would expect to be arrested and most likely get a few digs, probably some more when you get to the station if you hit the guy.

Throwing a fire extinguisher at some Carabinieri, one of the best armed and trained riot squads in the world, with a well known reputation for beating first and asking questions later IS THE HEIGHT OF COLOSSAL MORONIC STUPIDITY.

Of course I don't think he deserved to die, but if he'd taken two nanoseconds to think rationally about what he was doing, he wouldn't have done it.

What are these protestors hoping to achieve? I think it's the usual bunch of thugs looking for an excuse to smash stuff up and release violent feelings, they just have a new banner to mass under. Wrecking a McDonalds or a computer shop is not going to smash globalisaton, it's just the usual thuggish morons having a fun day out.

Left wing extremists are as bad as the right on their day - and they wonder why capitalism is surprisingly undented by their 'protest'

Lex_Diamonds

/me agrees

bugler

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Throwing a fire extinguisher at some Carabinieri, one of the best armed and trained riot squads in the world</font>

Though oddly it would seem not equipped with vehicles suitable to carry out their job.Land rover with no properly reinforced windows(with grills etc) in a the middle of a riot?! In Northern Ireland every time there is trouble we see RUC and Army landrovers taking a hammering with petrol bombs, bricks, bottles and all kinds of things.Soldiers or RUC men don't seem to be bothered too much, they won't even try avoiding them most of the time, no point. We don't see irish rioters getting shot when they throw objects at police landrovers either, at least not as a matter of course...

Which brings me to my next point, if that guy was Irish and was throwing a fire extinguisher at an RUC land rover do you think the level of outrage if he was shot dead would be any different? Then again, the RUC land rover would never have had its windows broken and men exposed. Take care of your police, Italy.

Has anyone else seen the actual footage? I caught it on EuroNews a couple of days ago, and it looked dodgy, but it's the kind of thing you would need to see a dozen times or more really.I wasn't sure what I was looking at the first time, and the second time they showed the shots being fired etc with red ring around gun.i have to say, the vehicle wasn't coming in from any particularly heavy attention from the rioters it seemed.The crowd was sparse enoughin the immediate vicinity, and some rioters were off to the left ignoring it, throwing stones in the opposite direction.I'm not using this as a definite basis for stating whether or not the cop('paramilitary policeman' in fact) should be charged or not, but lets say in my opinion he has cause for some worry of conviction.Just an initial reaction, I would really need to see it alot more, and even then, I wasn't there and don't know exactly what happened...

Von

The cop who shot the guy was a 20 year old doing his national service so he was hardly well trained. The Euronews footage did look suspicious but the bottom line is, don't hang around a vanful of armed scared coppers.

A question for all the fat-bottomed junk munching armchair Judge Dredds out there: What was the reasoning behind raiding (without warrants) the HQ’s of the GSF and IMC, stealing computers and beating up people in their sleeping bags? The official excuse was that they were the HQ’s of the “Black Block” anarchists. Yeah? The same Black Block group that the GSF refused to involve in any decisions over protest plans? Eyewitnesses (protesters, MP’s MEP’s and lawyers) claim the Black Block group contained agents provocateurs working for the police. They were observed lobbing gas bombs and bricks at the police then later on were pointing out protesters to be arrested. What better way to control a riot than start it yourself at a time and place of your choosing. The Spanish police did it a few weeks ago far less subtly.

It'd be nice work if you could get it, smashing stuff for the cops, but if I was an Italian citizen, I’d be more than a little annoyed if I discovered that my tax lira was being spent paying policemen to smash up my little shop.

Winning Hand

In the interests of fairness, that journalist should be dressed up in riot gear and dropped in the middle of a group of protestors, give a balanced view of things.
That is of course the journalist survives
Although seeing as its a sunday times article we wont be seeing any fair accounts of the protests, sensationalist news wins.

To be perfectly honest, Im perplexed as to what the guy throwing the fire extinguisher was looking for, a christmas card?

Also note the looting thats going on. I find it humerous (yet human at the same time) that some of these people will subvert their own beliefs for material wealth

Belisarius

What beliefs ? , those that initiated the looting were about as anti-capitalist as a ham sandwich. While the vast majority of the Activists , Pretensious richkid muppetry aside would be harmless . Your always going to get that element ,you know Football hooligans but more politically inclined . All and all with the tens of thousands there*it didnt actually reack 100K did it?* a little lawless pillaging would only be expected

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The Man From Delmonte , He Say "Yes"

solo1

This brings us back to the whole Israeli argument. The nub of the question is this:

Is it morally acceptable for a policeman / soldier, fulled padded with protection gear to shoot an unarmed and unprotected civilian who has just thrown a rock at him?

Some say no. Some say yes.

Either way, the threat of democracy is real. Given that our vote has been robbed from us, we want to be heard.

bugler

http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,529074,00.html

I think everyone should read that.

DadaKopf

I'm sorry, but this whole idea that the whole thing was 'venomous' and hatred-fuelled is just a completele load of bo||ox.

Yesterday, I saw first hand video footage from Genoa which spanned the first day arriving there on Friday, the riots on Saturday and Sunday etc and the Carabineri storming the Genoa Social Forum/Indymedia HQ. Yes riots happened, yes property got smashed but the atmosphere was not venomous and hate-filled.

The overall atmosphere for most of the protesters was of a carnival - people sitting around, playing music, having a laugh, shouting slogans and generally protesting with a totally positive attitude. The Black Bloc, the violent ones, numbered a maximum of 2000 out of between 150,000 and 300,000 and, as eyewitnesses said, many of the violent people looked like scobes just going for the opportunity to break stuff.

Most people who protest for global justice are peaceful and that's not contrary to conviction. The media will show what sells a the expense of not getting an accurate image of the events.

bugler

Dada did you even read the article fs, sounds like you just read the headline.I know the majority were peaceful, thats not even what the article related to.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Police officers rained down blows on the terrified protesters as they were herded into the main school hall. 'You could feel the hatred and the venom in them,' said Norman Blair</font>

It referred to the police while raiding the hall.Unless you think the police were also part of the "carnival atmosphere".

DadaKopf

I wasn't responding to the article.

bugler

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by DadaKopf:
I'm sorry, but this whole idea that the whole thing was 'venomous' and hatred-fuelled is just a completele load of bo||ox.
</font>

Rather unusual coincidence then.The article was sub-titled 'You could sense the venom and hatred', and this thread has been dead for 4 days til now.Aswell as that you placed the word "venomous" in inverted commas. Forgive me if I don't believe I made an unreasonable assumption....

ConUladh

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The protesters of Genoa now had a martyr.</font>

If those bent on violence are a small minority and not representative of anti-capitalist protestors as a whole then how can a member of that minority be a martyr for the movement

There doesn't seem to be any shades of grey in the media coverage, they've decided they're on the protestors' side, wasn't that long ago they appeared to be on the authorities' side. Bit of impartial coverage would be nice.


[This message has been edited by ConUladh (edited 30-07-2001).]

bugler

Stop the verbal diarrhoea, ConUladh.

The fact that the violent among the protestors were a small fraction of the masses is accepted by most reasonable people. And so, the media has portrayed this fairly well.That article was wrote by a person, that person cannot speak or claim to speak for all the peaceful protestors who were in Genoa.The statement that the protestors 'had a martyr' is very general. There were fights between the more passive marchers and the Black Bloc activists at some marches, because the 'passive' protestors were trying to prevent the violent protestors getting to the head of the crowd.The violence doesn't do the majority of the protestors any good at all. Noone can claim to know how the whole movement feels.

You'll never get impeccably impartial reporting, for a few reasons.This topic is the subject of an upcoming post from me....

C B

If the peaceful protestors are disavowing the violent element how come globalise resistance/ SWP had posters around dublin in the days following with a picture of the dead guy and a title "This is what their democracy looks like" (whatever the flock that means).

The naked oppurtunism of the Irish "anti-globalisation movement" is entirly hypocritical if it wants to distance itself from violent activities.

ConUladh

Ouch, stop, you might succeed in hurting my feelings

I actually agree with everything you just said (well most)

It wasn't the best article to use as an example I admit, on Sky they showed footage of riots then make comments like 'Maybe it's time we listened to what these people have to say', they're not referring to any peaceful protestors when they say that. Wrong attitude.

Didn't one major group stay away cause they didn't want to be associated with the violence??? The violence will continue as long as the protests happen regardless of the fact that the overwhelming amount of people there aren't involved and don't want it to happen, so how do you get around that?

As for impartial media that obviously depends on your perspective once a reporter puts any feeling or opinion into it at all and I would think that currently it's leaning more towards your kind of thinking than mine. Too much 'Look at this it's terrible' and not enough 'Look at this'. I suppose there's a lot to be said for the silent footage on Euronews!!!

Won't be commenting any more on this thread so bait away to your hearts content

I look forward to your media topic (my main gripe was with regard to coverage of Macedonia where their whole phraseology changed in the space of a week - Sky News anyway - giving a completely opposite impression of the situation, still don't know which is more accurate)

bugler

Hehe.I don't take many of my remarks too seriously.

CB, unfortunately an awful lot of movements become hijacked by people who will stop at nothing to get their 'point' across. Most people look at SWP et al as fairly pathetic, as quite a few threads on these boards has shown.Them seeking to capitalise on the rioters death was to be expected, just as every politician or public figure would be expected to express outrage if the deceased was a police officer, and express their heartfelt sorrow to his family.Certain groups will always use what they can to elicit support, or lend justification to their actions.More importantly, SWP are not a large or popular group, and I see the anti-globalisation movement as consisting of alot of individuals rather than a few groups.

Macedonia was a prime example of how the media can be biased and downright irresponsible.The most notable being the manner in which a rebel ambush was reported in several large papers here and in the UK. They described the ambush in which 6 Macedonian soldiers were killed as a "massacre".While the literal meaning of the word does not mention anything specific about the victims being unarmed (the word 'cruel' seems to crop up as a requisite, rendering all soldiers deaths as massacres it seems), it was a very inaccurate term to use.I don't recall any massacres of Argentinian soldiers during operations in the Falklands War being reported, nor massarces of Iraqi troops in the Gulf War.A group of soldiers(whatever their aims or politics) who ambush another convey of soldiers does not a massarce make.That sort of misleading cowardly press propaganda is all too reminiscent of the Middle East, but enough about that for now...

solo1

This type of thing is our last chance to make our voices heard, because god knows our vote means nothing.

Any time anyone takes notice of the protestors it is a victory for democracy over the kind of people who would decide our fate behind closed doors to have it 'rubberstamped' by their respective parliaments.

Why should we put up with this? Some of us have the balls to actually turn up and protest in a real way. Some of us, like me, just stay here, because I don't got the cajones. Still, much respect to those that do.

DadaKopf

Papers hardly mentioned Attac and their strategy of body searching all protesters so that they couldn't cause any damage.

Bah.

DadaKopf

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by solo1:
This type of thing is our last chance to make our voices heard, because god knows our vote means nothing.
</font>

I take strong exception to that statement. Voting is of utmost importance. Until people realise it's vital in democracy and not futile and unfashionable, the whole movement will remain an impotent force.