Italian minister escapes censure over G8 brutality

Italy's Interior Minister, Claudio Scajola, has survived a vote of no confidence over the police handling of the violent protests at the G8 summit in Genoa earlier this month.

The vote in the Senate was 180-106 in Scajola's favour, despite the fact that the police shot dead one unarmed protestor, 22-year-old Carlo Guiliani.

Protestors from Britain, France, Germany and the United States have also said they were beaten and tortured by Italian police after being arrested during a raid on the headquarters of the non-violent Genoa Social Forum.

They all claimed they were denied access to their consulates after their arrests and Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation.

Meanwhile, an Irish activists remains in prison in Italy, two weeks after he was arrested for possessing a Swiss-Army penknife at the Genoa protests.

31-year-old Joe Moffat, from Drimnagh in Dublin, a media studies student in Dublin Institute of Technology, has been charged with resisting arrest and possessing a weapon.

He was among about 200 Irish protestors who travelled to Genoa to protest against the policies of the G8, which are prolonging world poverty, adding to social inequality and harming the environment.

The Socialist Party, Globalise Resistance, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Labour's Michael D Higgins, Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna and ATGWU secretary Ben Kearney have all urged the Irish Government to condemn the brutal treatment of peaceful protestors at the hands of the Italian police.