http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Italy-Genoa-Aftermath.html August 14, 2001 Genoa Protesters Allege Abuse By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:40 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Italy-Genoa-Aftermath.html
August 14, 2001
Genoa Protesters Allege Abuse
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:40 p.m. ET
ROME (AP) -- American Sherman Sparks says he sat naked in a
prison infirmary, an ice pack on his injured groin, for a half-hour
before a guard gave him a blanket to cover himself.
Stefania Galante says she was forced to stand spread-eagled
against the cell wall for two hours in the middle of the night as
baton-wielding guards insulted her and 30 other Genoa protesters.
``They were threatening girls who didn't have their legs open, telling
them they would be raped with the clubs,'' Galante said. ``It was
surreal. I couldn't believe it was happening.''
It had been just a few hours since riot police smashed through the
doors and windows of a school housing demonstrators at the
Group of Eight summit, hunting for weapons and troublemakers.
While much attention has focused on the July 22 midnight raid and
the 60 people injured, prosecutors this week opened an
investigation into what occurred soon afterward at the Bolzaneto
police garrison.
Some of the 90 protesters detained that night say they were
physically and mentally abused at Bolzaneto, beaten and forced to
strip for medical exams and subjected to sexually graphic insults.
They say they were deprived of sleep, food, water and medical
care. When they were allowed to use the toilet, police would watch.
Foreign detainees say it took days to see their lawyers and
consular officials and that they were forced to sign Italian
documents they didn't understand. Once released, they were
dropped at a small airport without money, plane tickets or in some
cases passports; told they had been deported but unable to leave.
The treatment of foreign demonstrators has been the most
problematic issue for Premier Silvio Berlusconi since the summit
ended. While the outcry hasn't threatened his ability to govern, it
has further tarnished an image already clouded by questions about
the media baron's alleged conflicts of interest. And it has riled
relations with the mostly leftist governments of the European Union.
European countries have lodged formal protests about how their
citizens were treated. The United States has expressed concern.
Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry, and
lawyers are threatening action against individual officers.
At least three other Americans were detained in Italy in connection
with the summit; on Tuesday, judges ordered their release. They
were not held at Bolzaneto.
Those who passed through the barracks are angry about the way
they were treated.
``We asked to call lawyers. We asked to call the embassy. They
wouldn't let us,'' said Tess, a German protester who was detained
during the raid on the school and questioned at the police barracks.
She asked that her last name not be used.
Sparks, a recent college graduate from Salem, Ore., filed an
11-page affidavit when he was released. In it, he described how he
was beaten in the abdomen and groin during the raid, hospitalized,
imprisoned and then taken back to the hospital after the injury
worsened in the cold prison cell.
Like many others, he was only at Bolzaneto for one night before
being moved to another facility.
Jose Luis Sicilia, from the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza, said
he was forced to undress and do push-ups at Bolzaneto even
though he had just been hospitalized for two broken ribs and a
head wound.
``One day they entered with an electrocardiogram machine and
they started to wet my chest and ankles while a policeman was
smiling saying to me 'electroshocks, electroshocks,''' Sicilia said.
He said he wasn't tortured, but was traumatized.
Three senior law enforcement officials have been transferred
because of what went wrong at Genoa, including the death of an
Italian protester during a riot.
The Italian police chief, Gianni De Gennaro, has acknowledged
some units used ``excess'' force to combat the 100,000 protesters
who massed in Genoa and said he couldn't rule out ``illicit
behavior'' by police at Bolzaneto.
The Interior Ministry blamed ``extreme confusion'' for what
happened at the barracks. In its first report, the ministry said it
couldn't confirm charges of physical and psychological violence, but
said it couldn't rule out ``sporadic acts of roughness'' by police.
On Monday, about a dozen people detained at Bolzaneto
appeared before prosecutors to testify as part of a special
investigation.
At least 50 people have filed formal complaints against police in
connection with their detention, and lawyers from the umbrella
protest group Genoa Social Forum are compiling testimony of
others.
At Bolzaneto, ``you were not being considered a citizen or a human
being, but a Red or an anarchist,'' said Alfonso De Munno, a
free-lance photojournalist from Rome who testified Monday.
``The cells were open, they (police) would pass down the corridor
and beat everybody up.''
Galante, a 29-year-old from Padova, said women came out crying
from their prison medical exams after being forced to strip before a
male doctor. Some girls had their earrings and other piercings
ripped out, she said.
``It looked like we were either back in time, or in some other
country, in some other reality,'' Galante said. ``Seeing that happen
in Italy was unbelievable.''
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EDITOR'S NOTE -- Associated Press reporters Mar Roman in
Madrid, Jacob Adelman in Berlin and Susanna Loof in Vienna
contributed to this report.
