GENOA: Report on Genoa by two members of the German Bundestag
01 May 2001
An extract from a report by Annelie Buntenbach and Hans-Christian Ströbele, Members of the German Bundestag, on their trip to Genoa on 25 and 26 July 2001
Following initial reports and newspaper articles on the arrests in Genoa in the wake of the G8 summit on Monday, 23 July 2001, Members of Parliament Cem Özdemir and Hans?Christian Ströbele issued a statement to the press on the morning of 24 July calling for an investigation of the events in Genoa, in particular of the circumstances surrounding the arrests, and for the setting up of an independent international commission of inquiry.
On Tuesday afternoon (24 July), MP Ströbele made a decision to set off the next morning for Genoa. The German Foreign Office promised over the phone that it would provide support via the German consulate in Milan. Mr Höpfner, and later Mr Hartmann of the Foreign Office assisted in preparing the trip. That evening, MP Ströbele talked to MP Buntenbach who, independent of him, had also decided to set off, and they agreed to meet the next day in Genoa and try to visit the prisoners together.
The Prison in Vercelli
The delegation drove to the town of Vercelli, one and a half hours away. Two German women, F and G, were being held in detention at the prison in this town. While they were en route for the town, the Consul General and MP Ströbele received word that the women and other prisoners had just been released. MP Buntenbach, who had arrived via Milan from Germany and was waiting at the prison entrance, confirmed this. The group drove on, nonetheless, hoping that they would be able to meet and talk to the women released. When they arrived, they found that the women were no longer there.
When MP Buntenbach arrived at Vercelli Prison shortly after 17:00, a review of custody had just taken place. There was a group of 10?15 people in front of the prison, among them lawyers, journalists, friends and relatives who were waiting for the prisoners arrested at the Diaz School to be released at any moment. Police vehicles were on hand to drive the released prisoners away immediately. The police did all they could to impede contact between the prisoners and the people waiting for them. It was only when MP Buntenbach had given proof of her status as a member of the German Bundestag and when the prison director had arrived to intervene that she was able to talk to the two German women for two minutes, who were already sitting in a police van.
They said that they were alright. One visible sign of injury was a nose?ring which had been ripped out, now causing an infection. The two women reported that they were being deported by plane to Hamburg against their will. One of the women wanted to visit friends in Milan; the other one wanted to go back to Germany, but to southern Germany, not to Hamburg. MP Buntenbach was not able to stop the police transport to Milan airport. During the attempt to find what legal basis there was for deporting the prisoners, a lawyer from Vercelli stated that all prisoners released by the court authorities, who were not Italian citizens, were to be taken to the border and deported. The lawyer reported the case of one prisoner with dual citizenship, one of which was Italian, who was deported, too, although his parents were waiting at the prison to pick him up.
The same procedure was applied for all the people released on that and the following day. The prisoners were deported from the country by plane, train or bus. This was extremely vexing for the prisoners themselves, and for their friends and relatives. Many of the relatives had driven to Italy for the sole purpose of picking up their incarcerated family members. Many of those released from Pavia and Voghera, who were taken to the Brenner Pass by the police on Wednesday evening, were openly apprehensive that they would be left at the mercy of the police once again after release, i.e. of the men who had maltreated them at the Diaz School or at the police station.
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