Jean Lambert (Green) was present at a group hearing this week, about protests at major summits, which heard concerns over the policing of the G8 Summit in Genoa in July. She also supported a report passed by the Parliament, containing the recommendation that live ammunition is not used during crowd control situations, following the shooting of protesters in Gothenburg as well as the fatal shooting of one protester in Genoa.
She said "The policing of major summits, and the protection of the right to protest is on trial this weekend in Belgium."
"What has happened at some earlier summits is particularly disturbing and shocking. Genoa especially so. What we saw there was, I believe, a deliberate violation of the Schengen accords, a breach of the EU Treaty and the breaking of the promises made to all of us by our governments about the right to protest."
"We saw people stopped at the borders en masse - not on an individual basis. We saw people deported for no stated reason and without any sort of judicial process. We saw police violence of the streets and targeted at specific sites, which calls into question not just the training of police officers but the overall strategy of control of largely peaceful public protest in Italy."
At the Hearing, Mark Covell, a UK journalist, detailed the serious, unprovoked assault he suffered at the hands of Italian police: "On the night of 21st July I was brutally attacked in front of the Amando Diaz School, Cesare Battisti, by the forces of law, which I would have expected were on duty in order to protect my safety as a European citizen, not in order to assault citizens. I suffered the following injuries from the attack(s): eight broken ribs, a shedded lung and i lost three pints of blood. It took three days to stop the internal bleeding. The following medical treatment has been needed: I spent twelve days in San Martino Hospital plus visits to UK doctors for another operation( to remove remove bone splinters) and for trauma counselling."
He has submitted a Petition to the European Parliament asking it to consider whether the action by the Italian authorities before, during and after the "G 8" summit in Genova constituted a serious and persistent breach article 6 of the EU treaty, which states its basic founding principles: liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
ENDS
For more information, please contact MEP Press Officer, Steve Rackett, on 020
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