[Gipfelsoli Newsletter] NATO -- Hokkaido -- Genoa

[International Newsletter]

- France beats out Germany to host 2009 NATO summit
- Anti G8 football Cup in Japan
- Scared of terrorists, and the sun
- Police fear green groups will target G-8 summit
- G8 2001 Bolzaneto, the indictment by Morisani, state prosecutor
- March 2008 - Update on the Genoa Court Cases - Trailing lines

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France beats out Germany to host 2009 NATO summit

Germany-France-NATO
France scored a major political coup by beating out neighboring Germany to host
next year's NATO summit, marking the 60th anniversary of the western military
alliance, the weekly Der Spiegel news magazine reported Saturday.

Even though the German government has denied plans for such a summit, it had
reportedly started its preparations to host the festivities.

At least two sites, the Meseburg guest house of the government near Berlin and
the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, were in the running to host the 2009
meeting of NATO leaders.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was even willing to accommodate French President
by holding the summit in the Franco-German border region in the French city of
Strasbbourg and the German town of Kehl.

According to Der Spiegel, Sarkozy prefers to host the summit in Paris where the
French leader is to declare his country's return into NATO military structures.

France left NATO in 1966 following an order by then-president Charles de Gaulle.

Berlin and Paris have been openly vying for the European Union leadership in
recent months.

Merkel has been at odds with Sarkozy on several issues including the president's
plans for the creation of a Mediterranean Union as a counterpart to the European
Union, France's controversial nuclear exports to Arab countries and differences
over the degree of autonomy of the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank.

[Berlin, March 8, IRNA]


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Anti G8 football Cup in Japan

Hey, all the comrades of anarchists, activists and ultras in Europe!!! Here is
the Rage and Football Collective in Japan!

As you know, the 34th G8 Summit is to take place in Toyako(Hokkaido), Japan,
from 7th to 9th of July 2008.

So we, ultras and anarchists around Japan, have also decided to unite, stand up
and fight against G8 together with one philosohy, that is. Love football. Hate
G8!!

We are going to organize football games as one of our protest activities at the
same when they organize the G8. so we hope you guys to come and join us! Play
football together and have a fun!!

We have a blog here (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/rage-football-08), so check this out,
and follow the following information(detail of time, place etc.). We wanna see
you, here in Japan!!! Rage and Football Collective mail:
rage_football08 at yahoo.co.jp


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Scared of terrorists, and the sun

This coming July 7, Japan will host a three-day Summit of G8 nations at Lake
Toya, within the scenic confines of Shikotsu-Toya National Park in southern
Hokkaido. What better time, asks Shukan Taishu (Feb. 18), for al-Qaida
terrorists to launch a strike against Japan? Of course terrorism won't be the
sole security problem.


"The meeting's isolated venue will make it easier for police to keep watch, but
extreme radical groups are constantly mobilizing, and I can foresee foreign
agitators going on rampages," predicts Buntaro Kuroi, editor of the military
affairs magazine World Intelligence. He points out that at the June 2008 G8
summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, about 1,000 demonstrators were arrested.

To augment the 20,000 police, Shukan Taishu notes other measures are being
mulled, including a Self Defense Forces battery of PAC3 ground-to-air missiles
to guard against a 9/11-style air attack.



More worrisome than the safety of VIPs, however, is the possibility of
terrorists' going after "soft" targets of opportunity.

"During the summit's coverage by the worldwide media, there's a possibility
major cities like Sapporo, Tokyo, Nagoya or Osaka could be targeted," suggests
Motoaki Kamiura, a military-affairs expert, who notes that during the G8 summit
in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July 2005, terrorists set off bombs in London,
killing 52 people and injuring over 700.

A bomb using bottled propane gas, which could be set off in the subway, can be
constructed using materials bought in local shops.

"Any chemist who knows his stuff can use ingredients available at drug stores to
produce explosives that have 70 to 80 percent of the destructive power of
military devices," Kamiura adds.

"Terrorists could just steal a gasoline tanker and crash it into a shopping
mall, or hijack an oil supertanker and ram the U.S. Naval facility at
Yokosuka," he continues. "If al-Qaida makes a serious effort, hundreds could be
killed. At the very least we have to be on guard against these kinds of things."
Scary sunspots

Even if Japan makes it through 2008 unscathed, Mother Nature may still wreak
havoc a few years from now, as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration has predicted the sun's cycle of intense activity will reach its
peak toward the end of 2011.

Weekly Playboy (Feb. 18) reports that a pair of huge storms, measuring five to
six times the diameter of the entire Earth, have been observed on the surface.
Each solar flare, according to space maven Nobuo Nakatomi, emits energy
equivalent to 100 nuclear reactors, bombarding the Earth with a blizzard of
charged electrons that can affect everything from civil aviation to passenger
cars and even cell phones.

If severe enough, this high-tech nation might very well go into a tailspin.

Interference with GPS (global positioning system) signals beamed from satellites
can throw off the accuracy of auto-navigation units by tens of meters. Another
serious concern is aviation safety, as solar flares have been known to affect
communications between airport control towers and civil aviation.

Then there's those cell phones. The relay stations that transfer signals between
cell-phone handsets are linked by cable, but the network is still highly
vulnerable and if severe disruptions occur, cell-phone communications will be
knocked out for the duration.

Terrorists may be scary, but the prospect of 100 million Japanese simultaneously
denied use of their cell phones is truly horrifying to contemplate.

By MARK SCHREIBER

[http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20080210t3.html]


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Police fear green groups will target G-8 summit

Captain Paul Watson Responds to the Yomiuri Shimbun

This article was published on February 21st in the Japanese language newspaper
Yomiuri Shimbun. Captain Paul Watson responds to the misinformation in the
story.

Yomiuri Shimbun: The police are becoming increasingly concerned that
environmental and anti-globalization groups from the United States and Europe
may try to disrupt July’s Group of Eight summit meeting in Toyakocho, Hokkaido.

Captain Paul Watson: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does not organize
street protests and Sea Shepherd has no plans to disrupt the Group of Eight
Summit meeting in Japan to be held in July. The Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society is simply concerned with opposing Japan’s illegal whaling activities in
the Southern Ocean and Japan’s cruel and illegal slaughter of dolphins in Taiji
and other locations in Japan.

Yomiuri Shimbun: The concern comes as green groups turn to increasingly radical
tactics. On Jan. 15, two members of the U.S.-based environmental group Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society were seized by crew members after they boarded
the whaling ship Yushin Maru No.2, part of Japan’s Antarctic whaling fleet, in
an attempt to stop it operating by handing a letter of protest to the crew. Two
days later, the activists, a 28-year-old Australian and a 35-year-old Briton,
were handed over to the Australian government, which had acted as a mediator.
However, the Sea Shepherd vessel continued to harass the Yushin Maru No.2,
doing things such as throwing chemicals at it, and broadcast all such
activities live via the Internet.

Captain Paul Watson: It is interesting that boarding an illegally operated
whaling ship inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to notify the Captain of
an Australian court order prohibiting whaling in the Sanctuary is described as
an “increasingly radical tactic.” The reference to chemicals is misleading.
What Sea Shepherd crew did was throw stink bombs composed of rancid butter onto
the ship. The chemical name for rotten butter is Butyric Acid which allows the
Japanese to put the misleading spin on it to suggest that “acid” was tossed on
the ship suggesting of course the lethal types of acid like sulfuric acid.

Yomiuri Shimbun: Media in Australia and New Zealand, both known as anti-whaling
countries, repeatedly featured the group’s protest activities, and many
supporters of the group welcomed the protest ship when it made a port call in
Melbourne.

Captain Paul Watson: Perhaps the Japanese media is suggesting that there is a
conspiracy in Australia to oppose illegal Japanese whaling. They refer to both
Australia and New Zealand as “known anti-whaling countries” as if suggesting
that anti-whaling is a form of terrorist activity in itself. The story was also
well covered in the Japanese media which is not anti-whaling.

Yomiuri Shimbun: Following the clashes over whaling, Sea Shepherd ship Capt.
Paul Watson said in a telephone interview that the group would continue its
activities. He described the boarding of the Yushin Maru as a great success.

Sea Shepherd started its attempts to disrupt whaling in the 1990s. In November
2003, two members of the group were arrested on suspicion of forcible
disruption of business for destroying a net used for whaling in Taijicho,
Wakayama Prefecture.

Captain Paul Watson: They were in fact arrested for releasing and saving the
lives of 15 dolphins held behind the nets and set to be slaughtered that
afternoon. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has no regrets or apologies
for saving the lives of these 15 dolphins. The campaign in January 2008 was a
great success, the whaling ships were stopped from killing whales for over
three weeks.

Yomiuri Shimbun: Despite the arrests, Sea Shepherd has continued dangerous
protest activities, such as using ropes to foul whaling ships’ propellers,
saying Japan was committing a crime by violating international rules on
whaling.

Captain Paul Watson: Accusing Japan of committing crimes by killing endangered
whales in a Whale Sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium on whaling is
hardly a dangerous protest.

Yomiuri Shimbun: In the same telephone interview, Watson said the response to
the latest incident helped the international community recognize Japan’s
whaling as a problem.

Captain Paul Watson: This is very true.

Yomiuri Shimbun: Meanwhile, an official at the Fisheries Agency said: “They
won’t hesitate to do anything to achieve their goals. In that sense, I think
they are the same as terrorists.”

Captain Paul Watson: Japanese whaling ships have rammed our ships. Japanese
whalers held two of my crew hostage for three days and issued demands in return
for their release. This is a blatant terrorist tactic. Yet the spokesperson for
the whalers states that we will do “anything” to achieve our goals. Of course
this is not true.

Sea Shepherd has a primary policy of not causing physical injury to any persons
we oppose and we have never caused a single injury in the three decade history
of our operations.

Yomiuri Shimbun: The Japanese police have become increasingly concerned by the
behavior of such groups.

Captain Paul Watson: International environmental organizations are becoming
increasingly concerned about the increasing ecological crimes carried out by
Japanese corporations and condoned by the Japanese government.

Yomiuri Shimbun: Before the G-8 summit meeting at Toyakocho, Hokkaido, many
important international conferences and meetings will be held in this country.
Recently, some environmental groups based in the United States or Europe have
started to work together with anti-globalization groups, which oppose the
economic system led by the major developed countries, and have been taking
increasingly radical measures at venues for summits and other meetings,
sometimes resulting in clashes with police.

Captain Paul Watson: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s mission is to
intervene against illegal activity, not to clash with police. In fact the Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society works in partnership with policing agencies on a
regular basis to oppose poaching operations.

Yomiuri Shimbun: If the Japanese police allow such groups to obstruct meetings,
it might give the international community the impression that they are unable
or unwilling to prevent trouble.

Captain Paul Watson: I think the international community is very much aware that
Japan willfully violates international conservation law by unlawfully whaling
and engaging in fish poaching operations worldwide.

Yomiuri Shimbun: For this reason, the Public Safety Bureau of the Metropolitan
Police Department has begun investigating charges that Sea Shepherd activists
in February 2007 attacked the Japanese whaler Nisshin Maru by throwing a bottle
containing chemicals at it and other means. The attack reportedly resulted in
two crewmen of the 8,030-ton ship suffering minor injuries, and the police are
trying to build a case for a charge of assault or forcible disruption of
business.

Captain Paul Watson: Two crewmembers were not injured. This was a spin put on
the story by the Japanese P.R. firms a day after Sea Shepherd crewmembers
tossed rotten butter stink bombs onboard the Nisshin Maru. Rotten butter smells
horrible but it does not cause injuries. The Japanese police have not been in
contact with myself, or anyone with Sea Shepherd, over this incident.

The Australian government is collecting evidence to be used in establishing a
court case against Japan for illegal whaling operations.

Yomiuri Shimbun: Following a request from the owners of the Nisshin Maru,
investigators have been looking into the incident and have inspected the ship
for damage.

Captain Paul Watson: It will be difficult to find damage caused by rotten butter
but I’m sure they will do their best to try. The Japanese whalers refused to
cooperate with the investigation by the Australian Federal Police concerning
the ramming of the Sea Shepherd ship Robert Hunter by the Japanese whaling ship
Kaiko Maru in February 2007.

(Feb. 21, 2008) http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080221TDY04303.htm

[www.free-blog.in/migaloo]


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G8 2001 Bolzaneto, the indictment by Morisani, state prosecutor

The Bolzaneto trial has entered its final phase process for the violence into
the infamous G8 Police barracks & detention centre.

Last Thursday Genova Prosecutor Mario Morisani stood to begin his final
arguments in the Bolzaneto G8 torture case, the sister case to Diaz. He spoke
of the G8 in Genoa which “had been a wave of insanity. Everyone lost control on
one side and the other”.

“at least four of the five interrogation techniques that, according to the
European Court on Human Rights called upon to rule on the suppression of the
riots in Ireland in the seventies, constitute” inhuman and degrading
treatment”.

“Victims arrested were forced to stand for hours, in inconvenient locations,
beaten, taken around, deprived of food and water. The Prosecutor cited the UN
convention banning torture and the inhumane, cruel or degrading treatment. The
provision against torture, said the magistrate, Italy ratified had in 1989 but
has not yet translated into a criminal law.”

According to the Genova’s prosecutor’s office, what happened at Bolzaneto was an
inhuman and degrading torture but there is no law in Italy that covers the
description of the evidence at Bolzaneto. The prosecutors could only apply
article 323- abuse of office and breach of the EU Convention for the Protection
of Human Rights and Freedom from ‘fundamental abuse of authority’ against
persons arrested or detained, threatened, insulted or injured.

Prosecutor Petruzziello said that for the offence of torture and the inhumane
and degrading treatment he would be expecting sentences from 4 to 10 years.
Sentences being handed down in 2009.

The prosecutor cited several judgments of the European Court on Human Rights.
One of them, and ‘the judgement of January 18, 1978, known to have touched on
the so-called five technical harassment in the method of interrogation, issued
following the appeal presented by the Government of the Republic of Ireland
against the Government of the United Kingdom. The case concerned ill-treatment
had been the subject of people arrested during riots occurred between’71
and’72. “It emerged – explained the prosecutor – that those arrested were
forced to stand against a wall in a ‘position of power’; were hooded, subjected
to continuous noise while being interrogated, deprived of sleep, food and
beverages. “Of the five treatments examined by the Court and considered inhuman
– says the prosecutor – four were certainly inflicted on Bolzaneto.

On the sidelines of the process GLF lawyer Dario Rossi representing some of the
victims said: “There may be extreme reason to bring the matter before the
European Court in Strasbourg because our law, as recognized by the same
prosecutors, does not provide adequate legal justice for the torture inflicted
upon all those who were transited to the Bolzaneto Police Barracks.”

Supported by fellow prosecutors Patrizia Petruzziello and Vittorio Ranieri
Miniati, the state’s case against 47 prison police and five doctors would last
over six more court sessions before closing. The defendants are accused of
abuse Office, private violence, abuse of authority against detained or
arrested, Forgery, breach of the penitentiary regulations and the Convention
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Morisani stated it has been a massive challenge for the prosecutor’s office and
the Italian legal system in bringing indictments to so many police. The process
had started on October 12 2005 and has had 157 court days which have heard 392
witnesses and 12 defendants.

The judge expects to rule in June on the final verdict of the Bolzaneto episode.

The process resumes on March 3.
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/notizia.asp?newsid=79004
http://www.processig8.org/Rassegna%20stampa/LAREPUBBLICAGE_08_02_27.html

[http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/392869.html]


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March 2008 - Update on the Genoa Court Cases - Trailing lines

So we are finally almost there: one of the four court cases around the events of
july 2001 in Genoa has seen its first grade sentence, while other three are
drawing to a close within the summer. The court case against 25 people has seen
people convicted to something like 110 years of jail, ranging from mere 6 months
to 11 years per person. Nobody in in sane mind would have expected otherwise,
Genoa could not be left without someone to pay for it. But still people hoped
for something different, for someone to speak up about the absurd decision of
the court, or for people to take to the street again and defend their comrades.
This has not happened.

As for the other court case against activists, the so called Cosenza court case,
concerning 13 people accused of being part of a terrorist organization aimed at
organizing demo and consequently riots, it is going to see its sentence on
April 24th. The prosecutor asked for a total of 50 years of conviction basing
the accusation on evidence that is simply ridiculous, or malicious someone
would say, considering Carabinieri went around all of Italy before finding a
prosecutor actually willing to give credit to their speculations.


Diaz court cases follows on, with the witnesses called to court by the police
lawyers which should last until the end of March or so. After that, during the
summer prosecutors and lawyers should spell out their statements and the judge
should rule within autumn (or even august someone says). The feeling is that
the court is perfectly conscious of the political weigth of the court case and
that has already decided what will be its best conclusions. Unfortunately, as
you may suppose, they are not what the historical truth of that night would
demand. Probably the end will be a conviction for the riot cops hold
responsible for the violence of their underlings, while all of the Big Heads
will be saved hiding behind something like "lack of enough evidence". So the
fact is acknowledge, but responsibilities forsaken. That's how it goes in the
real world!
Bolzaneto court case is being discussed by the prosecutors right now, and they
will spell out their requests for the accused people next monday or tuesday
(March 10th or 11th): the sentence is to be expected for mid may, after the
lawyers of cops and people tortured will have spoken. In this case the court
seems to have acknowledged what happened in the Bolzaneto barracks, and the
feeling is that they will confirm what the prosecutor will demand, considering
also that Ranieri-Miniati and Petruzziello kept a relatively low profile and
decided not to ask for conviction for the crimes they were not 100% sure of
having complete evidence about. A safe-guard decision to be sure their requests
will not be ignored.

If you recall what we already updated you about in our previous memo, in october
2007, you now have a full picture of the situation.
Keep following supportolegale.org for more info, or write to
info at supportolegale.org