hydrarchist writes: "

The arrival of tens of thousands of demonstrators from all over Europe continues in anticipation of the first demonstratiion, today (thursday), for the rights of immigrants. The atmosphere is electric.

The response of the Genovese people has been enormously sympathetic. On our first night here a barman locked us into his cafe to drink until 5 AM; he and all his co-workers are participating in the demonstrations. Reports that all shops and facilities would be closed out of fear of a travelling anarcho-nihilist circus have been revealed as falsehoods. Bomb scares including the packet-bomb which exploded injuring one policeman are widely being imputed to the state and fascist provocateurs.

The early hours of wednesday morning witnessed the sealing up of the red zone (reserved for participants in the G8 summit) with metal barriers. There are a vast number of police officers on the streets, demands for documents and searches are incessant. They have a particular fondness for arriving mob-handed at the camping sites with hundreds of riot police in the morning to carry out impromptu searches. Elsewhere, violent confrontations are taking place in the port town of Ancona, arrival point of a Greek contingent numbering several thousand. People have been refused entry at Chiasso, Brenner, Ventimiglia and at the border with Trieste, it is crystal clear that police forces across Europe have been combining their data resources to identify known activists. Refugees arriving for the Immigrants Rights marches have also been refused entry, and in some cases forced to turn back.

The police have also moved preemptively against anarchists all over Italy, details of some of the incidents of repression in recent days can be found in this article from the anarchists in El Paso, Turin.

As in Prague, the mobilization is composed of three blocks: blue (anarchist and autonomist militants), white (the white overalls and fellow travellers) and pink (Reclaim the Streets, Kein Mensch ist illegal, creative agit propagandists of every hue). The first direct actions are scheduled for tomorrow, synchronic with the workers demonstration and national strike initiated by the grassroots unions (CUBS and anarcho-syndicalists). At present it appears that the the White Overalls and the Pink block may combine their actions, while the blue block intend to accompany the radical workers.

The unified demonstration will take place on Saturday. At present the number of particpants is impossible to estimate. Suffice it to say that in the camp controlled by Ya Basta and the White Overalls alone -dedicated to civil disobedience and self-defense - there are presently about four thousand people. There are many other camp sites full of anarchists, pacifists and leftist of weird, wonderful and occassionally hideous varieties. Some tensions have emerged between anarchists and Ya Basta. As expected the range of nationalities represented kaleidoscopic: large detachments from France, Germany, Greece, Austria, Ireland, Britain and Spain, but with many otherts from Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia, Slovenia.....

To be continued."