Armando Diaz School Raid (2001)
Sat Jul 21, 2001
Image: A still from the 2012 film "Diaz: Don't Clean Up This Blood"
On this day in 2001, Italian police raided a school occupied by anti-globalization protesters and journalists, beating and torturing hundreds of protesters. No officer served time in prison.
The school was the temporary headquarters of the anti-capitalist Genoa Social Forum, led by Vittorio Agnoletto, set up during the 27th G8 meeting in Genoa. A nearby building, housing the anti-globalization organization Indymedia and lawyers affiliated with the Genoa Social Forum, was also raided.
On July 21st, just before midnight, Italian cops raided the school, brutally beating and torturing all present. The police officers fabricated evidence of weapons and assault to justify their brutality, planting molotov cocktails and slashing their own bulletproof vests to justify the violence.
Before officers entered the school, British journalist Mark Covell confronted them outside, attempting to tell them he was a journalist. Several officers responded by beating him into a coma, breaking his hand, damaging his spine, and breaking six of his ribs. The police then used an armored police van to break through the school gates and 150 policemen, wearing crash helmets and carrying truncheons and shields, entered the school compound.
Police beat and tortured everyone they found. Several people were beaten unconscious, sexually harassed, had hair cut from their head, and thrown down the stairs. At least one person needed surgery to stop a bleed in their brain.
Some arrested were taken back to a temporary detention facility in Bolzaneto. There, they were tortured and forced to praise fascists such as Mussolini and Pinochet in song. One man testified that, after he refused to sign fabricated statements about what happened, police broke three of his ribs.
Although fifteen Italian police officers and doctors were sentenced to jail for the mistreatment of the detainees at Bolzaneto, none served time in prison due to a statute of limitations on their crimes. The British government supported the Italian government in the violence's aftermath; the spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair stated "The Italian police had a difficult job to do. The prime minister believes that they did that job."
- Date: 2001-07-21
- Learn More: libcom.org, en.wikipedia.org.
- Tags: #Journalism, #Fascism, #Protests.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org
