On this day, 20 July 2001, Carlo Giuliani, a 23-year-old Italian history student and left-wing activist, was killed in Genoa by Caribinieri – Italian military police – during protests against the G8 summit.
200,000 people, many of them from elsewhere in Italy and around the world, had travelled to the city to join protests against the meeting of the governments of the world’s eighth most powerful economies as part of a global movement against wealth inequality, globalisation and capitalism.
The protests swiftly became the most violent of the movement so far. Some protesters attempted to breach the barriers around the summit while others destroyed corporate property like banks. Meanwhile, police and Carabinieri unleashed a wave of brutal violence against protesters, journalists and bystanders, grabbing individuals, and beating them to a pulp. Hundreds were arrested, and many of them were tortured and beaten in custody. Some had their hair cut off, some were beaten and forced to say “Viva il duce” (long live fascist dictator Benito Mussolini), while others hospitalised were operated on without anaesthetic by prison medical staff. One journalist, Mark Covell, was beaten so badly by police he lost 12 teeth, had his ribs broken and torn through his lung membrane, had his hand broken and his spine damaged. The right-wing Daily Mail newspaper then plastered images of Covell over their front page falsely claiming he was a mastermind of the riots.
During one street confrontation, Giuliani was shot in the face twice and then run over by a Carabinieri Land Rover. The killer was absolved of criminal responsibility both in Italy and by the European Court of Human Rights. In the aftermath of the killing, graffiti declaring “Carlo vive!” (Carlo lives!) was daubed on walls and buildings all over the world.
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