29th G8 summit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Evian round table

The 29th G8 summit took place in Évian-les-Bains, France, in June 2003. As is usual for G8 summits, there were a range of protests. A number of non-G8 countries were invited to the summit (Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa) as well as the President of the Swiss Confederation and representatives of the UN, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, providing "an opportunity for an exchange of views on growth and international co-operation".

The protests, as well as the usual demonstrations, included a protest at the Aubonne bridge in Switzerland between Lausanne and Geneva, in which two activists suspended themselves from the bridge via a rope, with the rope stretching across the bridge, halting traffic and displaying a banner. As well as arresting various protestors, the police also cut the rope, causing one of the protestors, Briton Martin Shaw, to plunge 20m into a rocky river, resulting in multiple fractures (the other activist, German Gesine Wenzel, was caught by other protestors and pulled back onto the bridge). In January 2005, following a long campaign, a judge said that the police involved should be charged with causing bodily harm by negligence. However in a ruling on 17 February 2006 a judge has acquitted the two police officers found responsible on the grounds that their actions had been based on "a series of unfortunate misunderstandings" and therefore were not criminal 1 2.