this is a quick summary of what the diaz and pascoli school were and what happened on july 21st.
The Pascoli-Diaz-Pertini complex (the name of the three schools has been subject to debate and to mistakes several times, so we just need to say that we conventionally name the place where people slept Diaz school and the place where the media center was Pascoli school) is composed of two buildings where several schools are located. This complex in july 2001 is given to the Genoa Social Forum to build a media center and a communication and training center for various groups participating into actions during july 20th and 21st mobilizations against G8, as well as sleeping place for people who did not find other places ( this use will be a unforetold use that could not be avoided considering the accomodation issues during those days :)
In the Pascoli school the whole 4 floors of the building host: a press room and a self-managed E.R. in the basement; a legal support room and a medical support coordination room as well as the GSF offices at the first floor; alternative / left-wing media at the second floor; indymedia and independent movement media at the third floor; some office structures like copy machines and so on at the fourth floor where you could also access the roof.
In the Diaz school the gymn is used as training room with a small hallway and room used as public internet access space. Soon the whole school is used to sleep by several people not finding other places to lie down. During the whole week tens of hackers and media-activists mantain the place, allowing media people of any kind to tell their experience of the events in Genoa in those days.
Saturday night, while most of the people who in the previous days where deciding whether to go home or stay for the night, some lines of policeman in riot gear appear uphill on the street where the schools are (via cesare battisti). The police comes down on the schools rapidly and the raid of both buildings starts. During the showdown an activist is caught on the street outside the school not having had the time to get inside one of the two, and is beaten almost to death. In the Pascoli school the police rage is satisfied quickly by the destruction of legal forum, medics and mediactivist pcs, as well as a bit of beatings of random activists, while in the Diaz school it takes the shape of a full-fledged massacre. In the Pascoli people is forced to sit down or to lie face down on the floor, the rooms are searched and material seized with no paper whatsoever to justify it. In the Diaz school the police showdown becomes instantly a mass bloody beating and a hunt to the last activist in all of the building. The news flys quickly on all of the medias and outside the schools one can see a big crowd of jounalists, politicians and activist forming, until the police withdraws first from the Pascoli and later from the Diaz school. Withdrawing means the arrest of 93 people (everyone apart the ones who managed to slip away by sheer luck) and the injury of more than 60 people, 3 of which in very heavy conditions and one struggling for his life at the hospital. The withdrawal takes hours, whose rhythm is set by the ambulances driving away injured people and police vans dragging away the one who can walk. The people outside screams "murderers, murderers", especially when the police forces drag outside a black bag containing seized materials, that people thinks to be a body bag. Late at night the police finally disappears and holds a press conference accusing the 93 of being part of an international organization that wanted to loot and destroy to the ground genoa, as well as stating to have been subject to armed aggression during the raid at the school. After a short while all of these accusations will be proved false, and only two years afterwards more lies on the police operation (including the stabbing of a cop inside the schoold during the raid and the finding of two molotov cocktails) will be exposed and become a court case.
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