An "Embarrassing" Inquiry
More than 100,000 people participated in the 2001 Genoa protests, most of them peacefully. Italian authorities, however, prepared for the protests by ordering 200 body bags and designating a room at the Genoa hospital as a temporary morgue (BBC, 6/21/01). Twenty thousand police and troops were on hand, armed with tear gas, water cannon and military hardware as authorities enclosed part of the city in a so-called "ring of steel," with many railways and roads closed and air traffic shut down.
The U.S. press routinely gloss over this militaristic response, instead invoking the demonstrations as proof of the threat posed by globalization activists. Even the killing of Carlo Giuliani - a protester who was shot in the head, run over and killed by police after he threw a fire extinguisher at a police vehicle - is recounted by U.S. media as a timely "lesson" for activists that, as Time magazine put it, "You reap what you sow"
(7/30/01).
As FAIR documented at the time (FAIR Action Alert, 7/26/01), most U.S. media responded to the violence with sensationalistic reports on the drama "in the streets of this gritty port city" (ABC World News Tonight, 7/20/01), but showed little curiosity about fundamental questions, such as why Italian forces were armed with live ammunition. (As for the substantive political concerns motivating the protests, they were all but ignored).
More than 100,000 people participated in the 2001 Genoa protests, most of them peacefully. Italian authorities, however, prepared for the protests by ordering 200 body bags and designating a room at the Genoa hospital as a temporary morgue (BBC, 6/21/01). Twenty thousand police and troops were on hand, armed with tear gas, water cannon and military hardware as authorities enclosed part of the city in a so-called "ring of steel," with many railways and roads closed and air traffic shut down.
The U.S. press routinely gloss over this militaristic response, instead invoking the demonstrations as proof of the threat posed by globalization activists. Even the killing of Carlo Giuliani - a protester who was shot in the head, run over and killed by police after he threw a fire extinguisher at a police vehicle - is recounted by U.S. media as a timely "lesson" for activists that, as Time magazine put it, "You reap what you sow"
(7/30/01).
As FAIR documented at the time (FAIR Action Alert, 7/26/01), most U.S. media responded to the violence with sensationalistic reports on the drama "in the streets of this gritty port city" (ABC World News Tonight, 7/20/01), but showed little curiosity about fundamental questions, such as why Italian forces were armed with live ammunition. (As for the substantive political concerns motivating the protests, they were all but ignored).