not the first attack on peaceful protest

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday May 08, 2002 18:23 by fuinseog

the following not mine, but extracted from comments in Irish Times survey at http://scripts.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/regularvote.cfm

"On behalf of Youth Defence, I would just like to say, WE TOLD YOU SO!!!

"Pearse Street Station appears to be a bit of a bad egg. On two seperate occasions over the past five years Youth Defence members participating in the weekly Street Information Sessions have been arrested and strip-searched in Garda custody at Pearse St. Whay were they searching for? Concealed liturature? Did the media voice our grievance? The IT in its early country edition showed photo of our protest but it was pulled from the city edition.

"Then there was the Adelaide Hospital melié where one of our members was hospitalised and nine arrested, only to be convicted and then for that conviction to be overturned.

"That particular day was a watershed for me. With aspirations then to become a garda I was shocked to see how at least forty gardaí could decend at the very end of an extremely peaceful protest and lash out with such vigour. And did the media covr it? Are you joking? They don't count, it's only Youth Defence. We were the ones accused of kicking and clubbing the Gardaí. The media only seem to believe the SWPs (reds) of this world.
Culchie, Wicklow