History of the Independent Media Centre Network

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The first Independent Media Centre (IMC) was established in Seattle in preparation for the anti-WTO protests of November, 1999. The project was developed by a diverse group of radical media and tech activists, with participants from around the United States and overseas, including Australia. It was so successful that the idea quickly spread; within 6 months, a group had formed in the UK, and now there are about 200 independent groups around the world. The global Indymedia site (http://www.indymedia.org/) now provides multilingual coverage of issues from around the world.

As stated in the first Principle of Unity (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/PrinciplesOfUnity), "the Independent Media Center Network (IMCN) is based upon principles of equality, decentralization and local autonomy." The Principles of Unity go on to say, "all IMC's recognize the importance of process to social change and are committed to the development of non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian relationships, from interpersonal relationships to group dynamics." These (and other) values are reflected in the Mission Statements of the local collectives, such as IMC Scotland (http://scotland.indymedia.org) or the United-Kollectives (UK) Indymedia (http://www.indymedia.org.uk) groups, who will both be providing coverage of the G8. 

The history of the IMC has not been without incident, though. Numerous attacks have been made against different Indymedia groups by various governments: most notably, the siezure of the Ahimsa server in the UK last October; also, incidents such as the brutal police attack against the Italian G8 Indymedia Centre in Genoa 4 years ago, or assaults against individual IMC participants that have happened around the world. Predominantly, authorities desire the records (ip logs) of who has posted which article: information that Indymedia does not keep....

-- GarconDuMonde - 23 Jun 2005
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