Indymedia under attack! Update
hannibal smith | 21.02.2002 20:45
Update on the attack on Indymedia Italy (21.02.02). Translation of "perquisizione alla sede degli Associazione Giuristi Democratici a Bologna" from http://italy.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=38982&group=webcast
Search of the office of the Association of Democratic Jurists Hi everyone, The return from Brazil could not have been more turbulent. Here’s a brief message: Today the authorities have searched – without confiscating anything – the law office of our colleague from Bologna, Desi Bruno in connection with the earlier raids of the indymedia social centres, searching for video material. The search, arranged by the MP, Ge. Pellegrini (of MD – a different constituency!), of Desi’s office was regarding her capacity as a representative of the Association of Democratic Jurists and looking for video information related to the G8 protests in July. Ms Bruno has already requested an urgent meeting with the Head Procurator – now arranged for next week. This afternoon at the Council of Lawyers of Bologna there was a press conference about this serious act, above all in considering the fact that it was totally pointless and superficial. There were so many police it was as though they were dealing with terrorists. Moreover the decree itself is absurd and highly unprecedented from a judicial and political point of view. This is gross intimidation and an attack on the Association of Democratic Jurists as well as being an attack on the right to freedom of association. It is in particular an attack aimed at lawyers and jurists “connected” with the movement. Why did they not simply request the showing of the material?
hannibal smith
Homepage:
http://italy.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=38982&group=webcast
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Italy Solidarity Campaign
21.02.2002 21:50
The Alleanza Nazionale and the Lega Nord are in a deadly coalition with the Thatcherite Forza Italia and are keen to return Italy to the days of Mussolini. Alleanza Nazionale is a direct descendent of the fascist party while Lega Nord is an openly racist, parochial party which advocates the expulsion and even liquidation of ethnic minorities, particularly Albanians. Our only hope is that Lega Nord - which is even more mad than Alleanza Nazionale - will do what it did in 1994 and quit the coalition due to Berlusconi's refusal to grant northern Italy independence. This would see the Berlusconi government disintigrate. Berlusconi is renowned for his racist statements, recently claiming that the Islamic faith is uncivilised and deserved to be crushed.
Berlusconi controls much of the media and all of the television broadcasting - he even wants to break precedent by refusing to appoint opposition members to the board of RAI (the Italian version of the BBC). Instead, he hopes to allocate positions to his fascist friends. As for the Italian IMC, it is clear that this forms part of Berlusconi's obsessive desire to repress dissent and close up any avenue for independent media and freedom of association.
Italy is well and truly a fascist state, more so than Austria. The government is an abomination and is prepared to use lethal force - the Interior Minister called for the shooting of demonstrators in Genova if they breached any barrier - against those that oppose it. Berlusconi wants to become Il Duce and at the moment nothing from outside his government is stopping him.
Just as the crises in Argentina and Colombia led to the creation of solidarity campaigns, we need an Italian Solidarity Campaign in the UK. Our comrades in Italy are faced with a terror as malevolent as that which came with Mussolini's March on Rome. They need all our help in preventing the rise of another truly fascist state.
Don't think that because Italy is European that it is nicer than these far-flung regimes in South America or Africa. Here is a proto-fascist state on our doorstep and we need to give its opponents our full support.
Dan Brett
e-mail:
dan@danielbrett.co.uk