This is the statement of one prisoner from voghera of the volxtheatergroup at the pressconference at 20th in the B72 in vienna, austria on the topic of missthreatment.

I happened to be travelling with the VolxTheaterKarawane from Genova and ended up in a terrifying situation. At a meetingpoint outside Genova we were stopped by civil police and Carabinieri and kept for hours on the road while the vehicles where thoroughly searched. This is where the terror started. Alternatingly standing and sitting in the hot sun we had the feeling of beeing in an executing situation, machine guns pointed at us the whole time and policemen making sure we wouldn4t speak or move. We would get no information about what was happening, apart from what we could see with our own eyes, the vehicles being emptied on personal belongings and theaterprops. As our passports had been brutally taken away from us we had nothing more than to wait.
After hours we startet to read out from the policemens conversations that we would be taken back to Genova for, as they falsly daimed, taking our photos to verify our passports. This was a frightening turn of the situation, knowing that Genova now was a dangerous place where the police were hunting for anybody to blaim for the destructions in the town.
This is what indeed happened. As soon as we entered the Carabinieristation San Guiliani we were announced as the Black Block, raising a wave of hate in the eyes of policemen waiting there. And this turned out to have physical implications. The procedure at the Carabinieristation included a medical examination, a strip search and getting photos and unlike what we had been told, fingerprint taken. Any protest against this illegal action, as we were not yet under arrest, were met by beatings and threats. We also soon understood that the medical examination was to check for bruses and wounds, which were taken as signs of earlier confrontation with police and used as another reason for violent mistreatment.
But at this point not much was needed to cause violence from the police. A simple question from one of the men about why we were being kept there resulted in a blue eye. The men where beaten for just being in the same room as policemen, under the messages that we will kill you, we will break you hits on the legs and ribbs, kicks on the balls and back. the police was also careful how to do the beating to, as they said: leave them white. Humilation was used as another mean of torture. Some men had to clean one of the rooms at the station, being hit the whole time.
Women going to the toilet had to undress in front of open doors and male guards. During the stripsearch, where we naked had to sit and stand up repeatedly, the men against the wass, being beaten from the back, they would throw away personal belongings and rings, piercings etc which weren4t removed by the policemen. They even cut the hair of one person, after beating him badly.
The policemen used black gloves for the search and beatings, a frightening image and during the night they would put them on and off, never knowing what4s going to happen next, hearing screams and shouts from behind the doors. The terror in the corridor, where we were kept the whole night sitting close to the wall, not allowed to speak or more, included as well policemen telling about their naszist fascist identities, underlined by shouts like Heil Hitler, Sieg Heil, Viva Mussolini, la Duce with addition We4re nazists and we kill people like you. One policemen showed a Swastika tatoo in his hand. He was also the policemen who was most been to ask the women to suck my dick and Fuck me, which was only one part of sexual intimidation used against the women, ranging from sexual nises and signals to threat of rape.
The things which happened at the station carried on in an atmosphere of systematic terror, some being beaten badly and some left with a feeling of guilt for being treated less bad. There were also a few policemen distancing themselves from what was happening to us that night. Before leaving the Carabinieristation the groups of men and women, now seperated, where kept in a small cold cell with no bankets and windows open. Early in the morning where they had to stand with their hands up in a painful position causing cramps, before they werehandcuffed and taken away in chains, which were used to strain the handcuffs even more. Someone complained the handcuffs were too tight, where by the police pu them even tighter.
The feeling in the group was now we are going to hell this was just the beginning. The women were taken away some hours later, not knowing what happened to the men. In prison Alessandria the men where questioned and had to sleep the ground before put in cells. The women where taken to prison in Voghera. On this followed three weeks of untearaies and lack of information as well as violation of rights to visits and phonecalls during the first two weeks. Thursday, four days after we had been detained, to fall even lower when it was decided we would be kept longer, not knowing for how long.
Apart from the political aspects of the arrest and charges, being held in prison for three weeks not knowing for how long or what will happen, has psychological implications and this is just another way of trying to prevent people to take action and stand up for their believes. BUT THE CARAWAN GOES ON!!!