2008-06-08

8.6.2008 Genua -- Hokkaido

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Segreteria Legale: Diaz- und Bolzanetoverfahren enden - Aktionen und Veranstaltungen

Die Diaz- und Bolzaneto-verfahren nähern sich dem Ende. Am 9. Juli werden die Staatsanwälte des Diaz-Prozesses die Strafen für die 29 Angeklagten fordern. Am 21. Juli wird das Urteil im Bolzaneto-Verfahren verkündet.

Der 20. Juli ist der siebte Jahrestag des G8 von 2001 und wie jedes Jahr werden verschiedene, von den unterschiedlichen Komittees und Gruppen organisierte Aktionen und Veranstaltungen stattfinden. Angesichts des Interesses von vielen, insbesondere Nicht-ItalienerInnen, an diesen Tagen nach Genua zurückzukommen, diskutieren einige von uns gerade über die Notwendigkeit, einen öffentlichen Moment der Reflexion, der Erinnerung und Denunziation anlässlich des Bolzaneto-Urteils zu organisieren.

Der Sinn unseres Vorschlages ist, ein „politisches“ Urteil öffentlich zu machen, alternativ zu jenem des Gerichts. Die Räume des centro sociale „Buridda“ werden vom 18. bis zum 22. Juli als meeting point und Empfangs- und Treffpunkt dienen. Wir schlagen allen InteressentInnen vor, die öffentlichen Aktionen und Veranstaltungen am 21. Juli so wie die in den vorhergehenden Tagen stattfindenden Vorbereitungstreffen zusammen zu gestalten. Es scheint uns zu diesem Zweck wichtig, eine internationale mailing list für die Koordination zu schaffen oder bereits bestehende zu benutzen.

Genua, Juni 2008
Segreteria Legale
www.processig8.org

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G8, first final sentence

The Republic – G8, first final sentence Genoa, June 7, 2008

Translated from La Reppublica

She’s always been the first one, Valerie. The first to enter into the Red Zone. The first to be arrested by the police during those days of July. And the first to wind up in the hell of Bolzaneto. As of yesterday, she is now the first to have completed the third – and definitive – court of appeal for a legal hypothesis of a crime linked to the G8. The Court of Appeal has decided, and the conviction and sentence remanded echo the paradox. Because Valerie Vie must spend five months in prison for that half-step forward - toward liberty, she says – after one of the infamous walls had alread y opened.

Meanwhile the perpetrators of the harassment and violence of Bolzaneto will always be able, in case of conviction, to rely on the discretion of the courts. Just as many of the super-police involved in the bloody blitz on the Diaz School , where 93 innocent no-global demonstrators were first massacred by beatings and then arrested using false evidence. The sixth section of the Supreme Court has decided on the inadmissibility of any recourse against the precedent of their appealed sentence. The Court confirmed the conviction – the penalty was naturally suspend ed – and in addition, the court costs (300 Euros) are being requested instead of any fines.

A mockery, for those who seven years ago came to peacefully demonstrate, and instead underwent three days and two nights in a “temporary detention center,” of harassment and threats. It was the afternoon of July 20, 2001. Valerie was with the demonstrators from the ATTAC movement, in Dante plaza. With her hands gripping the grille, pushing and shouting against the “Great Eight” for “another word,” a better world. “Then suddenly the fence swung forward,” she recounts, “and I took a step forward. One step. With hands raised, in a sign of peace. ‘Behold,’ I said to myself, ‘Now I will speak with some representative of the government. Now we can speak our piece.’” But no. “They tie d my hands behind my back and rammed me into a strange police car. Without seats, with the windows closed.” One hour later, she entered into the Bolzaneto barracks. And when a man pulled her out of the car, she grasped everything. “The violence with which he had grabbed me. The brutality, which in that moment appeared unnecessary to me. It was a moment, and behind my restlessness came my growing awareness. It was inevitable that something bad would happen. And I was up to my neck in it.” Valerie Vie, who in Italy is represented by the lawyer Antonio Lerici, is a journalist. She lives not far from Avignon . She became the protagonist of a documentary film by Pierre Carles, the French Michael Moore . Who in these years has followed her with a videocamera, and will continue to do so until the end of her civil trial for Bolzaneto. Carles wishes to denounce the madness of those “barracks” which have scandalized Europe . “I fell in the courtyard of the barracks. The sun was beating down – what a day. There was an unreal silence. Strange. Around me I saw to many men, in uniform and in plainclothes. They did not speak. They fixed me in their stares. They hated me.” They beat her, insulted her, threatened her: “Are these photos of your children? You will never see them again.” Humiliated, derided. “The screams that rose with the passing of the hours, along with the tears. The blood.” Seven years later, she must still attend the first judgment of her torturers. “But it does not matter to me whether or not they go to jail. I am only interested in speaking of what has happened. Remembering, recording. Because all of this must never happen again.” In the meantime, they have condemned and sentenced her. For one step toward .

Source: email

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Anarchist Black Cross Osaka: We denounce the arrest of our comrade, Tabi Rounin! Release him now!

On the morning of June 4th, 2008, comrade Tabi Rounin, a squatter liberation activist, was arrested on the charge of “Illegal Address Registration” (in other words, living somewhere he is not registered to live at). His house was searched and more than 14 items were taken including his computer, his phone, resume and flyers. Clearly searching someone’s house simply because their address is still registered at their parents’ house goes beyond simple police work.

This is pre-emptive repression with one eye towards the economic summit being held on June 14th and 15th. He is currently being held in Koriyama police station in Nara prefecture and in 5 days will be put in front of the judge. There are hundreds of people every year who have their IDs registered to their family’s residence. To be arrested on ‘Illegal Address Registration’ is unheard of beyond political repression.

Tabi Rounin had stopped his activity within Osaka city, where the high class apartment buildings of the rich stretch on for miles, and had been active around the working class cities and suburbs around Osaka and Kawachi, connecting to squatters with no organized political presence or assistance, connecting to foreigners working for low wages in factories around his area. He is a working class revolutionary from the roots who fought an isolated battle. There are many anarchists overseas who have found sympathy with his selfless style of activity.

We fiercely protest this repression against the movement that we have helped build! Police, release Tabi Rounin immediately!

June 6th, Anarchist Black Cross Osaka

We are requesting contributions for Tabi Rounin’s early parole. Please send contributions to the address below. We also would appreciate support packages.

Osaka city, Kita-ku Nakazakichou 3-3-1-401

Jiyuu Roudousha Rengou Kizuke

Anarchist Black Cross

Source: http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos09132.html

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The Feminist and Queer Unit against the G8

The Feminist and Queer Unit has been formed!

* So, what is this G8 Summit?

The Japanese Foreign Ministry explains, “[the G8 Summit is] where world leaders come together to freely and privately exchange ideas around one table in order to reach consensus-based decisions on global issues – particularly those with regard to economic and social conditions – and effect change in a top-down manner.”

The G8’s origins lie in the oil crisis and global recession of the 1970s. It was formed by leaders of prominent developed nations as a forum where, amidst their insecurity, they could privately brainstorm on how to best protect their global interests and standing.

* How does the G8 Summit relate to me?

The G8 has been operating in the same secretive manner since its start. “Leading” nations have established a system for matching strengths and guaranteeing their maximum profit and advantage, while the rest of us – the non-represented – are busy working and doing what we can to stave off poverty. Leaders at the summit are not making decisions based in our realities – and the decisions they make effectively increase the hardships we face.

They weren’t kidding when they said ‘top-down’.

And yet, looking back over the last few decades, impromptu non-democratically formed organizations like the G8, the IMF, and the WTO have actually put themselves at the head of global developments. Their primary concern is to promote policies like free trade, and the privatization of water and other resources necessary for human survival. These policies often ignore the rights of local producers, workers, and consumers – i.e. people – to security in health, home and livelihood. In this way, they deeply affect our daily lives. In fact, the right to survival itself is more deeply affected the further ‘down the chain.

* We won’t stand for this!

We are ready to stand together before this same force that insists onmaintaining and expanding its own power and authority at the expense ofothers. As we see it, not only do these high-level deals injure the livesof countless women and queer persons, but they would readily erase ourstruggles and existence from the annals of history as well.

* How can they decide our lives without us…

Unlike these self-professed “leader of the free world”, we do not wish to take part in impassively making judgments of the value of other people’s lives. We won’t just stand by and watch as others are judged in this way and “put in their place”　either.

Some friends have lost jobs because they refused to wear skirts to work – while others have lost jobs because they did indeed wear skirts to work. Friends who never knew where to turn when pregnant, face charges for murder after making misinformed choices alone in public restrooms. In India, women that police had refused to protect from a serial rapist were later arrested for his murder. In Bolivia, women in debt are seizing the banks, while in Brazil farming women are reclaiming the land taken from them after their husbands left for work and never returned. In Japan, a friend is suing a former employer for constant harassment, “Man or woman! Which is it? Which are you?!”

* Open the door – and find another world.

In each of the countries and towns we were born and raised in, there weredifferent expectations of us – generally shaped by the political,economic, and cultural environment of the time. These expectations haveaffected our conscious and unconscious lives. And we have struggled withthem at times. We have long resisted being boxed in – by sex, gender,

sexuality, and so much more.The Feminist and Queer Unit does believe that all our individual realities are linked upon a common stage. We believe that by listening to each other and seeing how our experiences intersect, we can carry each other past this current world’s wrongs. We can open a door to another world.

There is no better way to fight injustice in our social orders than toconfront what is expected of us – in behaviors and values, in ouractions, cultures, words, and even daily routines. By recognizing theworkings of injustice embedded in our minds, we are empowered to overcomethem. We can defy them, along with the political and economic imbalancesthey serve to maintain.

Try opening a door that leads you beyond your understanding of what’s obvious in reality.

This summer, with the G8 Summit in Hokkaido and activists gathering fromaround the world, the Feminist and Queer Unit has come together to preparea guidebook for assuring women and queer persons will have safe spaces andopen exchanges of information during the event.

Last year, the feminist and queer presence at the anti-G8 summit inGermany was extremely strong. Yet Japan cannot achieve the same. Why isthis?

That’s one step that leads towards a door we believe needs to be opened.

The Feminist and Queer Unit will be getting involved in the following:

* Holding workshops to allow people to plan new collaborative events& actions together.

* Creating spaces, and possibly a cafe, for feminists, queer people, and their friends

* Creating a feminist and queer issues awareness guidebook for otheractivists, and getting involved in information exchanges across lingualbarriers

* Holding workshops for minority groups whose voices are not beingheard within civil society organizations

* Discovering new ways of creating consensus systems that operateunder the assumption on inherent human diversity

* Create a system facilitating the ability of people to turn to eachother for advice in times of trouble or need.

* Work to resolve the different traumas people experience whenworking in the activist field

Source: http://japan.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4472/index.php

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Hokkaido Police G8 anti-terrorism measures: deputizing coke machines with scare posters, police checkpoints in Chitose Airport…

Posted by debito on June 8th, 2008

Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants to Japan\Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association forming NGO

Hi Blog. With less than a month to go before the G8 Summit comes to Hokkaido, here’s some information on how the public is being steeled for the event. I expect things are only going to get worse (like they did for the Sapporo leg of the 2002 World Cup), when walking while White in public is going to be cause for suspicion, with street corner ID checks by overtrained paranoid cops indulging in racial profiling.

Eric Johnston and I have already talked about the oversecuritization for both the Debito.org blog and for the Japan Times.

Here’s the first evidence of that: Deputized coke machines… (and other places with this poster up; I peeled my copy off the wall at Odori Subway Station):

Translation:

Title: ”PLEASE UNDERSTAND AND COOPERATE WITH PRECAUTIONARY POLICING”

Left-hand slogan: ”For terrorists, the SUMMIT is the perfect opportunity to show their own existence.”

Lower slogan in red: ”JAPAN IS NOT UNCONNECTED TO TERRORISM!” (i.e. is no exception to being a target)

Bottom caption: ”2008 HOKKAIDO TOYAKO SUMMIT: Notify us if you see anyone or anything suspicious. HOKKAIDO POLICE.”

Poster found in Sapporo Odori Station on May 27, 2008. Coke machine photos taken June 3, 2008, in a quiet business district of Sapporo Chuo-ku.

As for the visuals, gotta love the soft fat squidgy likeable alert cop (unlike the evil lean gray terrorists). Good news is that the Japanese police have learned to make the terrorists not ethnic- or foreign-looking. That’s a positive development, compared to the police’s past poster handiwork.

More on the G8’s effects on Hokkaido residents when information becomes apparent. Another Sapporo resident, Olaf Karthaus, just sent this to The Community on Saturday evening:

Quick update on police activities related to The Summit

1. increased traffic checks on highways: Beware of new Toyota Crowns in Hokkaido. I have heard that the Hokkaido police got new vehicles for the summit and they are using them now to increasingly check people who speed. So if you see a car that seemingly erratically changes speed, takes over cars, suddenly decelerates and let other cars takes them over, beware.

2. Car checks when on your way to the airport. One lane of the two-lane access street is blocked and police is waving cars down. Dunno how they determine who is going to be flagged. Random?

3. Gaijin card checks at New Chitose airport: Plainclothes policemen (but easy to spot if you look, since they have earphones). I was politely asked (in broken English) to show my passport because of increased security measures for the summit. He immediately and unasked flashed his badge (not stolen or fake? How can I know? Never seen the real thing before). Of course I didn’t carry my passport, so he wanted to see my gaijin card. He put a pen to paper and asked if I mind if he takes down my name. I said yes, I do mind, and he complied. A quick check of the pronunciation of my name, and I was waved through. He told me that these measures will continue until the summit is over. All foreign-looking people will be checked. I still could catch my train (didn’t leave for another few minutes), but I didn’t feel to have enough time to ask him how they determine who is a foreigner and who is not. Also didn’t ask what kind of measures I could take that would ensure that I am waved through quicker (since I have a couple of more trips down south before the summit. I can already imagine the chaos when a full load of foreigners happens to be on my flight. Then I will definitely miss my train!

4. By the way, I was in Yokohama during the Africa Summit two weeks ago. Our conference happened to be in the same complex (Pacifico) as the Summit. Extremely high security (found out that evening from the news that PM Fukuda and the Tenno were there, too), but no gaijincard check whatsoever. And I was going in and out for three consecutive days!

Anyway, the inconvenience is going to increase up here. :( Olaf

Debito in Sapporo

Source: http://www.debito.org/?p=1721