<nettime> police is breaking the doors to l'usine (G8/geneva)

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

(via florian schneider)

please forward!

from the independant media studio from geneva where all different media
activists from all over the world are reporting life from the G8 protests
around evian/ genf / lausanne. the police is rioting the building right now.

please watch it and please forward it -  every public is urgently needed!

police is breaking the doors to l'usine. we are locked in the indymedia
center. please watch the live stream and support us:

http://www.geneva03.org/static/live.ram

thanks

---

IMC Dispatch Geneva, 01.06.2003 23:50
Eyewitness account of someone who has just come from Usine.

this is an eyewitness report from someone who has just come to the dispatch
center from Usine. All afternoon and early evening, there was some rioting
that moved toward the Usine. At the beginning it was in the Rue Basses, and
then it moved toward the Usine, in front of the Hotel de Finance along Quai
de la Poste. Local activists had been erecting barricades in front of the
Hotel de Finance. All windows of the Hotel had been previously damaged the
day before. This gave the police an opportunity to close off the Usine. They
blocked the access roads, but there were always people sitting in front of
the open space eating and drinking and socializing, and the situation was
calm. And soon after the people's kitchen brought out the food (around
7:30), someone said that there were plainclothes police coming. They wore
street clothes and masks: gas masks, bandannas over their heads, hoods over
their heads, and some had helmets. They came in an orange van that said
Police. There were canton police from Zurich and Geneva, but no German
police. They were armed with collapsible (telescopic) steel batons (which
are illegal for policemen to carry in Zurich). There were activists and
people from the Usine in front of the Usine, trying to close the door to
keep the police out. People made human chains outside the door. Police
immediately started beating people with their batons, without warning. They
came running in, screaming, and beat people immediately. Two people bled
from their heads. Then this eyewitness was beaten on his arm and fell, and a
woman fell on top of him. After a moment, she got up and ran away. This
eyewitness followed her to the river. On the way there were riot police with
"tonfa" batons, and they were hitting people who were running past them, but
not very hard. This eyewitness was clubbed. He heard stun grenades, (a.k.a.
percussion grenades or concussion grenades). There are photos of these
grenades, which have to this activist's knowledge not been used before in
Switzerland. Then more and more police came, in police trucks, army trucks,
and police cars. They pushed the people further and further away from the
Usine. This eyewitness saw some people being taken away from the Usine in
police buses. At the side entrance of the Usine, inside the Usine, the
police were smashing doors to break them open. There is film of this from
several sources. This eyewitness was standing in front of the side door on
Rue du Stand and a police man who was on the staircase smashed a window for
no reason. The glass fell on the people who were standing outside. The
policeman appears to have done it just for fun. Police led some people out
of the Usine and take them away in police cars. The legal team and
journalists were allowed to go close to the entrance to watch this. This
eyewitness went around a corner until the police moved away. One strange
thing was that one of the police officers who was leading the troops had a
rainbow-colored badge that said "Pace." He was not very aggressive. When the
police broke in, they offered no warrant. They did not open any dialogue
with the people who were in and around the Usine. It was an ambush.


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net