The responsabilities of German police and of the Merkel Government for the brutal repression at the big demonstration in Rostock are very heavy. 15000 policeman in fighting trim, transformed limited clashes with small groups of protesters into an assault on the enormous, passionate and colorful demonstration of over 100.000 people that was about to conclude with the final rally.

The numbers of injured policeman given from the government are ridiculous, if we consider the considerable quantity of policeman that assaulted the final rally , their military organization , and their “Robocop” uniforms.

We fear that these lies are going to prepare a yet more dramatic repression against anti G8 protests in next few days. There is the awful risk that the tragic developments against G8 in Genova will reoccur; that’s why the G8, that has almost failed in its internal and external objectives and appears to be hated at a popular level like in Genova and everywhere, is to be cancelled.

In my speech from the podium, as Cobas and as representative of Italian antiwar movement, I recalled the serious responsabilities of the Prodi Government, which is a protagonist of the G8 that manages: war; environmental devastation; dismanteling of public structures; precarity; and social injustice.

Now, with his participation in G8, Prodi will become responsible for the present and future repression of the dissent against G8.

If the center-left government were even somewhat left-wing it would ask for the cancellation of the G8.

IMMEDIATE FREEDOM FOR THE ARRESTED PEOPLE, STOP G8, PRODI REMAINS AT HOME.

Elettra Anghelinas

Press release

Miracles and repression in Rostock. And in Rome?

A miracle – the German police confirms it - took place in Rostock : 448 out of 450 policeman that declared to be wounded on saturday, prodigiously healed in few minutes.
Noone of them, in fact ,never enter in an hospital : only two Robocop-policeman needed to go to an hospital .

Unfortunately not as much miraculous is the protesters situation: here the wounded people, only at the big demo, arosen from a hundred of the first official declarations to more than 500.

For this we ask the cancellation of the anyway unsuccessful oligarchic meeting in Heiligendamm and , anyway, we ask Prodi not to partecipate to it,so that his Government, jet responsible of global war and of evil-deeds of G8, could not became partner in crime also in the fearsome risk to repeat the tragic repression of 2001 in Genova.

And in Rome? We read on the Italian press about imaginary connections between German “black blocks” and the Italian demo of the 9^th of June against Bush, Prodi and the global War.

We state it again: Germans and Europeans protesters will show their opposition against Bush in Heiligendamm; in Rome, if stupid and very dangerous prohibitions will not came in the last time, thousands of protesters will demonstrate against war “without if and but”.

Piero Bernocchi

Confederazione COBAS