Giving Voice to Silence: A Study of State Violence in Bolzaneto Prison during the Genoa G8 Summit - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 183

for example, “torture,” “state-sponsored violence,” “Bolzaneto prison,” or “Diaz
School,” and the consequences were that “what happened inside Bolzaneto was not
really violence”!
A second reason may be that the voices of those present in Bolzaneto have had
great difficulty for a long time in securing a space to talk about their experience.
Some theories focus on the fact that silence is an adaptive answer or a coping
mechanism that enables survival, in the face of a traumatic event, especially one that
is repressive for those concerned (Comas-Diaz et al. 1998 ), so that they may get on
with their lives. People prefer not to talk about their experiences, which serves as a
means of emotional avoidance to protect themselves. This tendency causes not only
the isolation of the individual victim but of the whole victim community, reducing
the opportunities for them to meet each other (Lykes 1994 ), even to the point of
breaking up relationships.
Another reason for the silence is that a few months after the Genoa G8, in
particular starting in September 2001, the attention paid to the events of the G8
summit rapidly declined. This trend was confirmed in October, and it disappeared
entirely shortly thereafter. As several scholars have noted (Andretta et al. 2002 ), the
terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and the war in Afghanistan
overshadowed and distracted attention from what happened in Genoa, changing
the agenda and, in the eyes of the media, reducing the significance of the Genoa
events.
When some bold individuals found the courage to speak up about Bolzaneto, they
received no acknowledgement or legitimacy. Some have paid a high price for their
testimony, for instance, Marco Poggi, a prison nurse that some officers at Bolzaneto
called the “infamous one of Bolzaneto” for having “blurted out” what happened.
After his testimony he was advised to leave his job because it was no longer safe, and
he received anonymous threats with words like “you'll pay for it”; in addition, he
was sued for slander. Poggi was the first person who felt the need to break the circle
of silence. He said that the violence occurred behind the walls of the barracks, took
place in an enclosed and protected space in an environment that promised impunity.
Only those who saw it could say what had happened. Only those who were there
could confirm the authenticity of the story. But for a long time, Poggi was alone,
ostracized by institutions and colleagues alike.
Other events that allowed the silence surrounding Bolzaneto to be broken are the
formation of the Legal Team Italia and the Truth and Justice Committee for Genoa.
The first entity was formed on 4 August 2001 with the aim of guaranteeing
defense to all persons who have suffered violent or unjust imprisonment, facilitating
the work of around 150 lawyers in the reconstruction of events through videos,
photos, audio recordings, and testimony, and establishing a chronology of events.
The Truth and Justice Committee for Genoa was founded in July 2002 on the
initiative of a group of persons, victims, and witnesses of abuses committed by
the police during the G8 summit. The purpose of the committee is to promote
knowledge about the facts of Genoa and to raise funds for legal activities; in
addition, it is a cosponsor of the petition “Never again another Genoa.” The petition