At 8.30am on July 16 activists of Network Against G8 (NAG8) have for a short while blocked traffic at the corner of Nevsky and Vladimirsky prospects in the center of the city, near Radisson hotel where participants of the G8 summit in St.Petersburg live.

They managed to unfurl banners «Against capitalism, against authoritarianism!» and «Network against G8». In several minutes they were detained by the riot police squad. Arrests were made rather violently, people were thrown on the pavement, beaten and then thrown into the police vans. Total number of people arrested on the spot is between 30 and 37. Among them 3 Ukrainians, 3 persons from the UK, one from Poland and in about equal proportion Russians and Germans.

Among the detained also were a member of the Legal Team group (whose mobile phone, which was used to film the arrest, was broken), a photo journalist from Associated Press and one TV journalist with a camera (they were later released from police station).

At 9am all the arrested were taken to the police dept. no 28 (Marat str, 79, tel. 7-812-764-28-02).

Head of police station Vladimir Kuznetsov personally took the person who came to inquire about the detained out of the police station and refused to provide any information.

But the mood of the arrested activists was festive, especially when they learnt that one of them has a birthday today. They greeted the person by throwing him into the air 29 times (as it was his/her 29th birthday) and started to play harmonica. Cops already started to release the arrested, but some people, including 8 foreign activists are still in the cop shop.


for more info see:  http://int.ru.indymedia.org/index.php

------------------------------------------
Blockade - action against G8 summit in St.PetersburgAuthor
author
Date Created
16 Jul 2006
More details...
Date Edited
16 Jul 2006 06:59:36 AM
License
This work is in the public domain.
Press release
Today in the morning around 30 people who are involved in the Network Against G8 (NAG8) blockaded the entrance of a hotel which is used by participants of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg. They blockaded the street for a while, carried banners, distributed leaflets against the policy of G8 and made noise with a trumpet and by shouting slogans like “No G8 anywhere” and “it is the end of G8 as we know it” in Russian and English.

The action had international character as anarchists and anticapitalists from different European cities like St. Petersburg, Moscow, Minsk, Chishinau, Warsaw, Kiev, Cardiff and Berlin took part. The action was planned to show that there is protest and resistance to G8 no matter where it takes place. Police reacted with a clash on the action, everybody was arrested, some of the activists sat down and were carried away, others were brutally graped and forced to leave the street.

Laws are not made by the people who have to cope with them in the end but by those in power.
The blockade of the street and protest which violated these laws is a response to the repressive situation in the city of St. Petersburg, where everyone who does not fit in the picture that the Russian officials and the G8 supporters are trying to create is criminalized.

The G8 as an institution strengthens the role of the elite countries in the worldwide market and promotes hierarchy. It makes decisions for millions of people and interferes with libertarian and selforganised relations between people. The member countries make decisions about direct and hidden wars.

There is an urgent need to take action against the G8 summit. The protest is taking place all over the world. The growing movement of resistance against those in power can not be stopped in Russia or anywhere else by tough police or a president who denies peoples right to say no to this elite club. Today’s intervention with a direct action against the G8 summit is another step not to demand but to work on what is needed - to shut down the G8.

For more information see:
ru.indymedia.org/int
piter.indymedia.org
www.spb8.net

add a comment on this article