Garda violently shut down RTS

national | miscellaneous | news report

Monday May 06, 2002 21:31

by Aidan O'Brien - IMC Ireland

aidanobrien at esatclear dot ie

I'm not sure what Image is going to stay with me tonight when I go to sleep. What I can only say is Dublin has witnessed some of the worst police brutality seen in years

I'm sitting in a cybercafe across from Christchurch, police bikes, a half dozen are driven passed. One of them earlier joked to a passerby, "Just some kids acting up"

"Just some kids acting up" if the Garda felt the level of brute force used today was justified for just some kids, I'm sincerely glad the don't equip them with tactical nuclear weapons to sort out post pub brawls. Let me recount some of what I saw;

An old mate, a corporal in the FCA, stepped out of a pub to see what all the fuss was about, shoved indiscrimiately by the "peace force", and a little drunk he fell and was set upon by three Garda kicking punching and using a trunchon.

A 16 year girl, sobbing by the side of the building, screaming in pain, beaten across the skull, later I helped her into an ambulance, she was obviously concussed.

A young man skilled in caporeia, taking a baton across the shins for not moving quick enough to clear the street.

I've plenty of video evidence for other crimes and assaults, but not for these, why? Because while filming the assault, mentioned above, from the pavement, a Garda grabbed, me as I shouted that I had a right to film and I was on the pavement, his other hand, shoving my camera down, then he ripped out my battery.

If the Garda are so assured their behavior has been justified why try and stop people filming, a young girl, struggled free from a ban Garda, trying to take her camera.

I'll give you some back story.

By six things were mellow, the party finishing Garda's walking through the crowd. There had been trouble earlier on, centered around a symbolic car the protestors had purchased, a banger, to trash.

Whether this was sensible is debatable, but the Garda reacted to Protestor hostiliy by trying to take the car off the street without asking questions; bottles where thrown, Gardas where shoved, there was a tug of war for the car. A Flare was set off inside it, orange smoke billowing out.

The Garda reaction to this was predictable but nevertheless surprisingly intense. Among other things they hit a 16 year old girl, and dragged a boy, on crutchs, 30 feet into the back of a van. Eventually after about a half hour the car was wheeled off by the Gardas and the attention rightfully returned to the drums and the sound system.

It turned into a gorgeous warm may evening, serious techno played till about 6:30 bright sun and a nice breeze the revellers made the most of it. Anarchist Cheeleaders, Face painting, drinking and chilling.

At 7 we realised we were heemed in. This isn't supposed to be what reclaim the streets is about it's about freedom, not the freedom the police let you have. So the party moved, danced around police lines, and down the quays the liffey on one side, the band played as they moved.

A highpoint for the RTSers was when a Unmarked cop car tried to drive through the crowd. The parters in front of the cops just sat down. 50 of them, and then everyone danced around the police car hemmed in unable to move. Eventualy reinforcements arrived, there were minor scuffles, a few from RTsers who'd been drinking for a while but mostly everyone was good natured chilled, just not willing to take the crap and play by the rules everyday society demands.

This teasing of the Gardas lasted as the protests rolled down the Quays up Parliament street and down Dame Street.

At College green a Garda bike and van tried the same trick as before, instead this time, the street was wider and the protestors more spread out, they got to the front, just about, 20 people sat in their way.

First just one from the van, trying and falling to wrestle the big RTS banner which had been hanging from lamp posts. Then dozens of Gardas bikes and vans, batons out, brute force and ignorance. Clubbing protestors repeatadly to make way for cars, they drove everyone from the street, even on pavements you weren't save, this is when my camera was damaged.

There was confusion most protestors fell back through temple bar giving the tourists something colourful for their postcads. I should make this clear, this was no running battle, no riot. Garda casualties were minor to say the least. A few cuts and bruises and a lost cap would be the worst of their woes. Though later I learnt one Garda had a broken wrist.

Small groups of protestors and Garda are still milling around the streets as I write this, two people I know are in custody, with many more, possibly as high as 15. There's an attempt to gather a protest outside the station, but Zero Tolerance is the Garda Attitude. Several more people were taken away in ambulances. People in pubs and restaurants came out to shout abuse at Gardas, astonished by what they saw.

They beat up children. They arrested a man with a broken ankle, they attacked people videoing them doing this. There was minor scuffles but nothing to warrant or justify this obscene behaviour.

I just recieved a phone call, I can't conform this, but theirs a report of a ten year old boy in hospitial struck by a Garda baton.

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Comments (3 of 3)

State violence

by Daltun

Tue May 07, 2002 02:21

This premeditated attack by the Irish state on the forces of resistance means that the anti-globalisation movement,-broadly defined,- is being taken seriously by corporate, priveleged, Ireland. The question now is: How to respond to this violence? By fighting back physically, or by civil disobedience. Martin Luther King showed the way-Passive Resistance is above all resistance. To adopt the violent tactics of the state is to play into their hands. So Organize, and use Indymedia to expose the system of power, privelege, and corruption, which corporate Ireland and its international links has become. This is merely the opening sally in a struggle that shall take years. But what is at stake is our lives and livelihoods. The corrupt mainstream of F.F., F.G., and 'Labour' is the enemy that must be exposed, resisted and defeated. Clearly they are prepared to use extreme violence to preserve their class privelege and domination.

Re: State Violence

by Blinko

Tue May 07, 2002 13:25

Kings non-violence was nothing without the threatened use of force from the Panthers and Malcolm X. Real or imagined. Words without force get ignored. Force without words gets destroyed.

Guarding peace with violence

by Mariel Deegan

Tue May 07, 2002 16:31

mariel.deegan2 at mail dot dcu dot ie

I am not an anarchist. But yesterday I went along to a street party to enjoy the extraordinary celebration of diversity and freedom in Reclaim the Streets, made manifest through colour, music, dance and a pulsing vitality that allowed anyone to talk to anyone. It was a good afternoon, chilling on Eden quay.

About 6.30 or 7, as things were beginning to wind down, the partying pedestrians skirted round Gardai patrol cars, and danced and marched on down the quay, past O Connell Bridge, heading west, with the dying sun. That was when trouble showed its ugly head. I sat down with the crowd to blockade the gardai, but anarchy and crowd psychology being as they are, this didn't last for long, and the procession continued up Parliament street, and down Dame Street. And in fairness, it was pretty tame! Reclaiming the streets is one thing, but it was a bank holiday monday, traffic was light anyway, and we let most cars pass. Motorists did not seem too put out.

Now it was a big crowd, so I cannot confirm exactly how the violence began - I can only document my own observations. I was dancing along the street, when suddenly I noticed a small group of 3 or 4, gathered around a young man in his 20s, who had blood streaming down his neck - he claimed to have been knocked off his bike when a police baton knocked him in the back of his head. I was horrified.

Along with a number of other RHSers, I sat down on the road, but you know, being the coward, and law-abiding citizen that I am, I went to stand up when I saw the Gardai approaching us. I had just turned around while getting up, when my companion and I were pushed in the back. We looked around, thinking someone had accidently knocked into us, only to be faced with a garda, leering over us, and shoving us on. I was seething with anger - we personally hadn't done anything wrong! We wanted to avoid trouble, so we moved onto the pavement, where we eventually joined in a conversation of complaint with a garda who acted as a human barrier to pedestrians. It was a one-sided conversation: he adopted the dumb bouncer tactic - "I don't know anything - I'm just following orders" - don't you just love dumb bouncers!

Eventually reunited with one of my friends, we mellowed into the crowd heading toward Templebar, as he tried inconspicuously to take photos of the brutality with his digital camera: he got a nice portrait shot of a particularly thuggish garda, clad in leathers and helmet, but little violence could be documented. As I got out my mini-disc and microphone to interview a victim, a garda glaringly started towards me, so I put it away - I'm really not very brave! As we melted into templebar, to survey the photographs, we came upon a young man whose face, neck and clothes were literally covered in blood - my curiosity got the better of me, and I had to ask him what had happened. He reported that he had stepped in to break up a violent confrontation between a demonstrator and a garda, and when he had stepped in, so had a load more gardai, all armed with batons, and a senseless brawl ensued.

I don't know what motivated the gardai to lash out at peaceful citizens in such a violent manner. Perhaps it was boredom - after all, they had had to watch us party for 4 or 5 hours, and they didn't really have much to occupy them - I mean, how mutinous it would have been to have joined in! Or perhaps it was an inkling of threat - young, colourful and cheerful demonstrators, oozing diversity, on Dame Street, carry with them a whisper of change, which their Garda training course did not equip them to deal with. If there were maybe 30 hardliner protestors there, who did pose a serious threat to them, there - they had no idea how to target them - batons were lashed out at anyone who accidentally fell into their path. Part of me is realistic - forceful measures, or at least weighty threats, are sometimes needed to maintain 'law and order' - the League of Nations failed for a reason! But there was simply no method to the barbarism practiced by our 'Guardians of Peace' (yes, that is what Garda Siochana translates as!). For the first time, I could understand why street violence erupts - when that Garda pushed me, I was so angry, and frustrated, that a surge of aggression shot right through me - I almost imitated one of the other demonstrators - sat down on the side of the street, and meditated to restore myself to a state of calm - but I probably would've been forcefully removed!

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Garda violently shut down RTS

Comments (3 of 3)