From Larch Juckes Maxey...

-----Original Message-----
From: emily, larch & co. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Many of you know Martin Shaw from road protest sites/ EF!/Genetix
Snowball/Prague etc...
Below is a letter of complaint about the outrageous behaviour of the Swiss
police which led to Martin being seriously injured during a peaceful banner
drop during the G8 summit. The text is being circulated to a number of lists
etc. Please take the time to copy and paste it in to a separate e-mail and
send it to the Swiss embassy:
[log in to unmask]

To whom it may concern, 

On Sunday 1st June, a UK national, Martin Shaw was severely injured and
hospitalised as a result of actions by the Swiss traffic police. The
protestor, part of a 15 person international collective blockading a bridge
in Switzerland to prevent G8 delegates passing from Geneva to Lausanne, was
participating in a banner drop with the slogan "G8 Illegal". Martin and
another protestor were hanging from both ends of the same rope from a 30m
high bridge over a small stony riverbed alongside the banner.

The two traffic police arriving at the scene panicked about the build up of
traffic and cut the rope that the two protestors were hanging from despite
repeated warnings about the danger of this from everyone present. Martin who
is a very experienced and careful climber, then fell 20m into a stony river
bed and was left there with spinal injuries, pelvic damage, an injured
spleen and two broken ankles for an hour before the emergency services
arrived with a ambulance helicopter to take him to the hospital.
Eye-witnesses report that the police were much more concerned with
immediately restoring the flow of traffic than they were with getting
medical attention to Martin.

The other people present managed to rescue the second climber by holding on
to the other end of the rope for 15 minutes so that she also didn´t fall,
although she was later delivered to the hospital suffering from shock.
Whilst Martin lay collapsed on the ground and demonstrators rescued the
second climber, police continued to direct traffic over the bridge as if
nothing had happened. It is extremely lucky that these two people are not
dead as a result of the actions of the Swiss police.

Martin currently remains in hospital in Geneva where he has undergone a
series of emergency operations on his vertebral injuries, spleen and ankles.
The doctors have stated that his back will slowly recover, but at this stage
the doctors are unable to say whether or not he will ever regain full
mobility in his ankles. 

I am writing to express my anger and wish to register my protest of
this terrible incident and of Martin Shaw´s near fatal treatment as a result
of the actions of the Swiss police. I condemn the gratuitously violent
repression of people exercising their democratic right to protest at global
summits like the G8. I demand afull and transparent enquiry into the
behaviour of the police involved, an unreserved apology on behalf of the
police  uthorities, compensation for the injured climber and a promise that
this brutal behaviour will not be condoned or tolerated by the Swiss
authorities at any time now or in the future.

Signed