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

Tue, 01 Sep 1998 17:19:06 +0000
Judge (bernardo@gte.net)

Can this be verified?

Judge

Peter Grimes wrote:

> ---------- 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]
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Police Raid Seminar on Economic Globalization
> Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 17:14:36 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Njoki Njoroge Njehu <wb50years@igc.apc.org>
> 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>
> Cc: AGP/AMP Geneva Dispatch <press-action@agp.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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