Old news from last week

Circumstances of the arrest

The exact circumstances of the arrest are as of yet not known to us. Since we do not have contact to the activists only speculations remain. They were probably stopped on Sunday around 6 pm by the police about 10 miles outside of Genoa in Recco, where they had drawn the attention of local authorities with their bus. The police stated that 4 persons were on a 'black list' [its emergence and whereabouts remain so far in the dark]. All 25 persons who participated with the caravan at that time were arrested. Prior to that event the bus had been controlled twice by the Austrian and the Italian police. No objects could be found that would justify the term weapons.

Groundless accusations

According to the first investigation they are charged with vandalism, endangerment of public safety as well as membership to a criminal organization. The last and most serious of the charges due to anti-mafia laws in Italy seems to be the reason for the absolute contact barrier as well. The circumstantial evidence for this fact is less than convincing. According to the Austrian consul Manfred Moritsch, black t-Shirts, Swiss pocket knives, juggling and fire eating equipment and a broken, approx. 50 years old gas mask. The aforementioned articles, however, were already spotted during the course of numerous prior checks in Italy and Austria, and not once contested..

Investigation procedure

The first hearing took place on Thursday, 26 July 2001 in Alessandria. For this purpose all arrested were transferred there to be accused of composing the hard core of an 'international black block' in the presence of even the Austrian consul in Milan. The existence of that 'black block' as well as its connection to the caravan, however, could neither be confirmed by Italian nor Austrian authorities. Furthermore vandalism and endangerment of public safety were confirmed as charges and all 25 were transferred in remand.

Torture and abuse:

So far there is no secured information about the health of the members of the caravan - neither Italian nor Austrian authorities abroad wanted to exclude the possibilities of abuse. There are, however, several reports by persons with whom the activists were arrested, that speak of heavy abuse of several individuals. Nothing so far has been verified though, due to the imposed contact barrier. The whole procedure of the arrest and the transfer to the prisons qualifies though as heavy abuse. Whether or not, and if, how many individual members of the caravan are actually injured is not known to us.

The role of the Austrian authorities

While other European governments protest against the overdrawn measures of the Italian police, the Austrian government has expressed its full confidence in the Italian police and law. Even after some evidence surfaced about a possible channeling of right-wing extremist groups into the protests (as means of the police strategy of escalation), the Austrian Foreign Minister met with her Italian colleague without a word of protest. Even the Italian public prosecutor's office questions the circumstances of the arrests regarding the moderation of the police force. We do not want to speculate here, but the serious question remains whether or not the arrest of the 'no border - no nation' caravan was part of a plot of Italian and Austrian police to criminalize them. An Italian policeman stated: 'We have information of Austrian authorities that with high probability weapons were to be smuggled to Genoa in this bus'. As no real evidence was shown the unbelievable accusations could not withstand pressure by most of the arrested` s home officials. The whole procedure of investigation is also responsible for the fact that activists from Australia, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Slovakia and the US are still in detention..