Journalists injured in violent protests at Genoa summit

By The Associated Press,
freedomforum.org staff

07.23.01

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Photo taken by AP photographer Jerome Delay, who was later injured, shows demonstrators throwing ripped-up paving stones at riot police as clouds of tear gas rise during second day of clashes in Genoa, Italy, on July 21.

GENOA, Italy — Journalists were targets of both police and protesters in violent clashes that marred the three-day summit of the world's industrialized countries, which closed yesterday. Several journalists suffered injuries.

The secretary of the Italian Journalists Union, Paolo Serventi Longhi, expressed his solidarity with the injured journalists, some of whom he said were "unjustly beaten" by the police.

Most of the violence was caused by small groups of protesters that broke from tens of thousands who marched in Genoa to protest globalization.

The journalists injured included Sam Cole, a British citizen stationed in Rome for Associated Press Television News. Cole, a producer, suffered a head wound July 20, on the first day of the conference, when he was clubbed by police.

Jerome Delay, an AP photographer who is based in Paris, suffered a rib fracture when he was struck from behind by a demonstrator wielding a metal bar.

Also clubbed by police was a reporter for the Italian news agency AP.Biscom. The agency said the reporter, whose name it would not disclose, had identified himself to police as a journalist and showed his summit press credentials.

Among others injured was Timothy Fadek of the Gamma Press agency. He said police beat him after throwing him to the ground while he photographed protesters hurling tear gas canisters. Fadek was treated for bruises on his arms and back.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse reported yesterday that a 33-year-old British free-lance journalist, Mark Covell, "was thrown to the ground and held by the neck while four or five police kicked him" in a raid at the headquarters of a Genoa group that helped organize the protests.

AFP quoted unidentified witnesses as saying Covell "was left lying unconscious in a pool of blood."

One protester was killed July 20 in clashes with police. Demonstrators then tried to break into the "red zone," a cordoned section intended to protect the summit leaders.

In Washington as the Genoa conference began, a U.S. congressman urged President George W. Bush and other summit leaders to press authorities in Belarus for a "complete and transparent investigation" of the disappearance of cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky.

Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., called at a news conference for the "appointment of a credible national independent commission of inquiry that would mount a thorough investigation into the disappearances and bring those responsible to account."

Zavadsky, who worked for the Russian television station ORT, was reported missing in Belarus 12 months ago. Zavadsky's wife said at Smith's news conference that she doubted her husband was alive.

Dan Keegan, an intern at The Freedom Forum’s international division, contributed to this report.

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