Stripsearched in florence

national | miscellaneous | news report

Thursday November 14, 2002 11:57

by Rory Hearne - swp

Last Friday while making my way to the European Social Forum (ESF) in Florence, Italy, where a million people (according to the organisers)peacefully marched against the imminent war against Iraq I experienced at first hand the lack of democracy and respect for human rights within the EU. The Schengan Agreement is supposed to guarantee the free movement of all EU citizens within EU states. However, the bus I was travelling in, which was part of the mobilisation for the ESF from Spain, was stopped at the French-Italian border. Our passports were taken by the border police and within 15 minutes they returned and asked for me to leave the bus and go with them. I was then stripsearched, the contents of my bags emptied on the floor, and later photographed. Completely confused and startled I asked the police why all this was being done to me. They gave no reason. Later,