[Fwd: Police Raid Seminar on Economic Globalization] (fwd)

Sat, 29 Aug 1998 21:35:30 -0400 (EDT)
Peter Grimes (p34d3611@jhu.edu)

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 21:18:26 -0400
From: Barbara Larcom <larcom@bcpl.net>
To: Dave Schott <dschott@igc.apc.org>, Erika White <CLawC@aol.com>,
Frida Berrigan <disarmnow@aol.com>,
Leslie Bilchick <baltimoreaction@erols.com>,
Lynn Yellott <lyellott@erols.com>, Peter Grimes <p34d3611@jhu.edu>,
Walda Katz Fishman <wkatzfishman@igc.apc.org>
Subject: [Fwd: Police Raid Seminar on Economic Globalization]

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Fri, 28 Aug 1998 17:15:28 -0700 (PDT)
Fri, 28 Aug 1998 17:14:58 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 17:14:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Njoki Njoroge Njehu <wb50years@igc.apc.org>
Sender: owner-50-years@igc.apc.org
Subject: Police Raid Seminar on Economic Globalization
To: 50-years@igc.org

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 13:59:10 +0200 (CST)
From: Andreas Rockstein <anro0002@stud.uni-sb.de>
To: MAI-not <mai-not@flora.org>
Subject: Police raid seminar on globalization and resistance (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 03:20:15 +0200
From: AGP/AMP Geneva Dispatch <press-action@agp.org>
Subject: Police raid seminar on globalization and resistance

Tel/Fax: +41 22 3444731

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: 27/8/98

TO: Information Department

FROM: International Globalisation and Resistance Seminar

PRESS RELEASE:

Police Raid International Seminar

Early this morning, police raided a seminar being held in Geneva. Officers
illegally searched individuals and private belongings, detaining all 50
participants at the station. The detainees, from 17 different countries
and including a 6 year old girl from the Ukraine, were held for over 2
hours without explanation. Most were eventually released without charge.
However, 5 remained in police custody for yet another five hours. Four of
these were then released - the fifth is still in custody.

The seminar was convened to discuss economic globalisation and its impact
on communities and the environment, as well as peoples' efforts to reclaim
control over their own lives. Speakers include international economists,
journalists, representatives of people's movements, and workers from human
rights and other non-governmental organisations. The world-renowned author
and President of the Observatoire de la Mondialisation, Susan George,
lectured all day on Tuesday 25th, and found, "a group of peaceful and
law-abiding young people". She "deplores the police actions and calls for
the immediate release of those detained."

Without warning, the participants were rounded up into vans and taken to
the police station en masse, where they were subjected to lengthy identity
checks. This follows a week of close police surveillance. About forty
police officers, in a concerted action, entered the seminar site at 7.30am,
waking the guests, searching their accommodation without a warrant, and
confiscating personal property. They refused to give receipts for the
items, which included videos, notebooks, an artist's portfolio, personal
diaries and photographs, and the organisers' documents. Most of these have
not been returned as yet.

It appears that the five who remained in custody were victimized as a
result of previous arrests during non-violent activities in May; one for
simply walking down the street. The reason for their detention, and their
location, remained undisclosed.

When a woman from the seminar asked a policeman, "Isn't what you're doing
illegal?", he replied, "Yes, totally." Police were also overheard making
racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic comments. Taking a passport from the
stack, a policeman said, "Oh, that's the Jew!" A Bangladeshi charity
worker who had just been awoken was singled out for particularly offensive
treatment.

A British writer said, "I'm still in shock. It seems that discussing our
common experiences about global problems and solutions is now a crime in
Switzerland." Another journalist from the Ukraine commented, "I thought I
was coming to a country that exemplified democracy." A Nepali human
rights worker summed up the group's feelings: "For me it is unthinkable
that such police action in violation of human rights should take place in
the same city as the UN Human Rights Commission headquarters."

Under the steamroller of neoliberal globalisation, it seems that space for
public criticism faces increasing repression and the denial of civil and
political freedoms.

-------------- Leaflet: ------------------

DETAINED FOR DEBATE

Police Raid International Seminar on Globalisation and Resistance

At 7:30 am, Thursday 27th August, about 40 police officers raided the
seminar on Globalisation and Resistance being held in Cologny, Geneva. 50
participants, from 17 countries, were taken in riot vans to the local
police station.

In addition, property, including videos, personal notebooks, and
photographs, were confiscated, and only returned a few hours later.
Everyone was detained for over 2 hours without explanation. Amongst them
was a 6 year old girl from the Ukraine. Most were released without charge.
4 were kept for a further few hours, and were released on condition that
they leave Switzerland within 4 days. A fifth person is still being
detained, and her situation is still unclear. This raid followed a week of
police surveillance including helicopters as well as visits from uniformed
and plainclothes police.

The 16-day seminar aims at critically challenging the hegemonic consensus
of neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism elevates free trade to a provider of
great wealth and prosperity for all. The World Trade Organisation's
Director General Renato Ruggiero preaches the virtues of the free market,
with the prophecy of mobile telephones in the remotest parts of the planet.
But this is not the world we live in .

The world we live in is increasingly coming under the control of
unaccountable, undemocratic, and highly centralised, transnational
institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the
World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the European Union. Powerful tools for
the development of the neoliberal agenda are trade treaties such as the
proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment and various other regional
trade agreements.

Power and wealth are concentrating in the hands of transnational
corporations, such as Shell, Nestle, IBM, and Monsanto. Decision making
shifts further and further from local community control, and into the hands
of corporate lobby groups, such as the International Chamber of Commerce,
and the Geneva based World Economic Forum.

Far from generating prosperity the world over, globalisation is causing
destruction of environ-ments, and great increases in poverty and misery
across the world. While integrating the world into a single global economy,
free trade is excluding and marginalising the overwhelming majority of the
world's inhabitants. The poor lose control of resources and local
economies. The effects of this are hunger, unemployment, forced migration,
increased marginalisation of women, destruction of eco-systems, cuts in
social services, violence, and general social collapse.

As people increasingly show their unwillingness to submit to this global
order, nation states are responding with ever more repressive strategies.
Basic rights and freedoms which have been earned by hard struggle are being
rapidly eroded. This process could be seen in the hysterical police
response to the international non-violent actions in May against the WTO
and is now reappearing in this week's police raid.
The seminar has been entirely educational and consists of lectures and
discussions only. Speakers have included well-known people like Professor
Nanjundaswami from the Karnataka Farmers Movement of India and Susan
George, president of the Observatoire de la Mondialisation. We view this
police raid as a violation of basic political freedoms, like the right to
organise freely and to free speech.

Rather than being intimidated, we would like to extend the seminar to a
wider audience. We invite you to come and participate in the seminar. Come
to the Palais de Justice, on friday 28th 8. at 4 p.m.

We do so to heat up your adrenaline, to inspire your rage and to strengthen
your hope !!!

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