Italy: Criminalisation of train protesters in Valsusa
01 November 2005
Ongoing protests against the construction of a tunnel through the Alps for a high-speed train (TAV) linking Turin and Lyon (France) in Val di Susa in the northern Piedmont region were the scene of a night-time police raid in Venaus to remove protesters from the site at 3 am on 6 December 2005. The violent removal took place several days after the Interior Minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, had warned that the protest was liable to be infiltrated by extremists and subversives. On 2 December, he had speculated that there was "an explosive mix between legitimate popular protest, political speculation and subversive infiltration that threatens to explode one of these days". His prediction failed to materialise. The citizens of Val di Susa (including the mayors of all the valley's villages) had ensured that the occupation of the site was peaceful, and were articulately explaining their reasons to the media. During the police raid the elderly, women and peaceful protesters, were beaten with truncheons and evicted. On 15 December 2005, Pisanu offered an unusual apology to parliament: "I have no difficulty in apologising to the peaceful citizens of the Val di Susa who have suffered physical harm during the clearing of the Venaus construction site".
On 8 December, in reaction to the violent eviction, tens of thousands marched to re-occupy the site. They succeeded in passing through the police lines which had blocked off the area during an afternoon in which there were minor skirmishes with objects being thrown at the police; the police reaction included firing teargas. The Interior Minister, using a familiar argument, claimed that "the serious incidents were exclusively caused by around one thousand people belonging to far-left, anti-establishment and anarchist-insurrectionalist groups, who arrived from several cities with the deliberate intention of causing disturbances, attacking the police forces and illegally occupying the areas that have been expropriated to be used as construction sites". This reading of events is consistent with previous efforts by Pisanu to promote the criminalisation of left-wing protest movements by linking them to terrorism, (see Statewatch Vol. 15 no. 5 and Statewatch news online, February 2005).
Pisanu's rhetoric was strengthened on 18 December when, after an anti-TAV demonstration, a Lega Nord MEP, Mario Borghezio, was beaten up (suffering a broken nose) on a train in which he travelled with a police escort and protestors returning home from the demonstration in Turin. Borghezio had been advised by the police not to board the train. A member of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Borghezio has distinguished himself in the past through racist initiatives such as the disinfecting of trains used by migrants (whom he presumed to be prostitutes), organising anti-immigrant Masses and speaking at a rally of the far-right Forza Nuova in 2002 about "the global attempt to corrupt and bastardise our blood" (see Statewatch, Vol. 9 nos. 1 & 2, Vol. 13 no. 1). Fifty-four possible participants in the attack were identified by the police
On 22 December Pisanu appeared in parliament, arguing that: "for a long time...I have been reporting to parliament about the risk of a growing situation of conflict in which increasingly serious forms of widespread illegality and political violence are being established. But I have not been listened to closely enough." He called on all political and social forces to "isolate and report the violent [elements], especially those who defend their legitimate right to demonstrate", adding that "after a demonstration that took place regularly...there was this sting in the tail that confirms...the existence of an extremist and subversive threat that may pollute peaceful demonstrations".
Pisanu continued to issue a blanket attack on social centres (as members of some social centres were considered responsible for the attack on Borghezio): "we cannot hide the fact<