gardai double standards

by nought to do with YD Thu May 09, 2002 12:30

STRIPPED. New actions of the Police state
Does anybody care about civil rights anymore? Are we all so damned comfortable in our 3-bedroomed, semi-detached houses, with our middle-range cars parked in the driveway, that we are not prepared to speak out against injustice as it continues around us. Everybody today is speaking of peace, but peace is not just absence of war, it is about "quiet, calm and and harmonious relations." And there is no surer thing than that the presence of injustice inevitably leads to the breakdown of peace. We are witnessing recently, with increasing frequency, the arrest and maltreatment of peaceful public protesters, almost exclusively those of the pro-life persuasion. On Saturday, 4th April a group of 15-20 pro-life activists were handing out leaflets on Grafton Street. They were using display boards portraying the real truth about abortion, that a woman is injured and a child dies everytime an abortion takes place. The previous week they had been approached by a a member of the Gardai Siochana who ordered them to discontinue their activity. He had not however, issued anything other than vague threats and their street session had continued.

This Saturday, however, no option to continue or desist was given. A mariah van came screeching up a crowded and pedestrianised Grafton Street, Gardai jumped out and began to grab boards and arrest the stunned pro-lifers. Those arrested were taken to Pearse St. Garda Station. During the arrests the Gardai showed the same level of aggressiveness with which YD has become accustomed. In a second mariah van on the way to the station, one of the girls was struck with considerable force across the face by an inexplicably enraged Ban Garda, to the horror of the other YD members present.At Pearse St. Station the male and female members were separated. The first female prisoner was taken into a room where two Ban Gardai ordered her to remove her clothes. She refused and received a barrage of shouted threats from the Ban Gardai who told her that if she didn’t remove her clothes they would be taken off her. One of the Ban Gardai present was in fact the same one who had assaulted this girl on the way to the police station and she feared further assault if she did not comply with their unnecessary and intimidatory order. This procedure was carried out on four female members of YD. One of the girls was told that a male Garda would be called to "hold her down" while she was stripped if she didn’t comply. This member, a girl of considerable modesty, had her arms bent and twisted while her clothes were pulled from her. During the strip-searches the Ban-Gardai examined the girls underwear and forced the girls to loosen their bras to see if there was anything "hidden" in them. All of the girls were shaken and terribly distressed following the strip-searches which they saw as unnecessary, humiliating and a form of sexual abuse. Religious items, such as scapulars were dragged with force from the girls necks or, in one case, removed with force from a clenched hand. Three of the girls were together in a cell where they heard a fourth girl screaming while she was forcibly searched. They began to bang on the cell doors fearing, correctly, that their friend was being injured. A male garda came strolling down to the cell door and was asked what was happening in the examination room. He smirked and walked away.That Saturday marked a new and unprecedented step in police harassment of peaceful pro life demonstrators. These girls were subjected to this dreadfully humiliating and degrading treatment on the dubious grounds that they, a secondary school teacher, a trainee solicitor, an accountant and a secretary were possibly carrying potentially dangerous weapons. If this was remotely true, why then were the six male arrestees not subjected to the same type of search? And all that despite the fact that other women held in custody in Pearse Street on that day, were not strip searched, including those who were being held on drug related offences.

It reflects very poorly upon the training programme of Templemore Garda College that their graduates act in such a way when dealing with quite obviously non-violent civil disobedience. The abusive language used by the Gardai, coupled with their entire lack of respect for decent, upright public protesters does them no credit. Behaviour which can only be described as bullying and persecutory will only do them a disservice. The Gardai are now denying what they did, and indeed because of the immediate response of friends and supporters to the news of the strip searches, began to deny it immediately. This has added to the distress of the young women involved, and it seems likely that legal action will be necessary to obtain justice.Two weeks later on Saturday, May 16th 1998, a group of about 80 pro-life protesters gathered outside the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin. It was a beautiful day with the sun beating down. The photographs of the occasion show a peaceful scene with many young people and young families in attendance. They were there to protest at the Adelaide Hospital Society’s submission, to the Government Working Party on Abortion, which suggested that the premises of the new Tallaght Hospital should include facilities for the abortion of children up to eight weeks gestational age. Their submission also suggested provision of such services throughout the State. Abortion involves the deliberate and intentional taking of the life of a developing human being and as such cannot be tolerated, least of all in a hospital funded by us, as tax-payers. That a hospital society should suggest the provision of facilities to kill children within a hospital, a place designated for saving lives is anathema, at least to those who care for all human life, born and unborn. It was a peaceful and happy scene with plenty of smiles and good humour.

But then the "Guardians of the Peace" arrived. They picked their targets for arrest and despite the fact that none of the detainees actively resisted arrest (we use the tactic of passive resistance or going limp), the heavy hand of the law came crashing down. A small, slim, young man (whom I have the pleasure to know to be a committed pacifist) was grabbed around the neck very tightly by a couple of Gardai who threw him forward forcefully onto the bonnet of a car while holding his arms tightly behind his back. He would happily have walked into custody, but the Gardai neglected to offer this option. The Sunday Independent could have used the caption "brute force and ignorance"; judging by the expressions on the faces of the arresting officers in the photo. I was at work that day but thanks to technology, have been fortunate to see the heroic actions of a large number of very brave people who attended the Adelaide Hospital demonstration. The video-tape shows very clearly that Youth Defence and friends acted in a manner entirely consistent with the principles of non-violent civil disobedience. It also shows that the Gardai have no understanding of the citizen’s right to assemble and protest under Article 40 of the Constitution. Their initially amateurish and later brutal response, shows quite clearly that they are poorly-trained in management solutions of public protest, unless confronted by a drunken mob on a Saturday night.

That said, poor training does not excuse their abusive and threatening behaviour, particularly towards those already held in custody. Their disregard for normal police procedure is blatant, and tolerated by the courts. They act with impunity because the political establishment wish to ensure that the only opposition to abortion, when an Irish government inevitably introduces it, comes from those whose letters of complaint can be more easily confined to the office-shredder, than the resounding voices of the witnesses for the unborn. Gardai jumping from vans shrieking loudly and incoherently to arrest peaceful, non-violent, tax-paying members of the public is entirely anachronistic in view of the civil and human rights achievements of the past two centuries. They should grow up, and stand up to their corrupt political masters, and tell them that if Bertie Ahern, John Bruton, Pronsias De Rossa or Ruairi Quinn want legal abortion, then they should be the ones who roll up their sleeves to remove the peaceful protesters. That would be more interesting. Eight people appeared in Court on Monday 18/5/98 on charges ranging from "the use of threatening or abusive language" i.e. chanting anti-abortion slogans, to "obstructing a member of the Garda Siochana" - a charge levied to protect the Gardai from their own abusive actions. If the accused are convicted and sentenced, it will be a massive victory for those who wish to see Youth Defence crushed by the State, but more ominously it will herald the demise of the right to peaceful public protest, if the subject of the protest is a matter of establishment policy.

But one week later, the State had not finished with the protesters outside the Adelaide. On Saturday the 23rd May, at 7.30am, in a Gestapo-style dawn raid, a mother of four children was taken from her home by use of a specially obtained warrant. At the same time a 25-year-old member was also being removed from his home with a similar warrant. In both cases, a Garda van and four Gardai came to their homes to arrest them and have them appear in the Bridewell Court at 10.30pm that same morning. They were both charged with obstructing a Garda. It is no coincidence that both these people were to be witnesses for a YD member who was hospitalised by the Gardai. This method of arrest is unheard of for a public order offence. It is an attempt at intimidation which if the matter was not so serious, would be some form of a perverse joke.Let us not be consumed by our justifiable anger for that will achieve nothing other than to cloud our judgement.

We have our long term goal. We are seeking to re-establish in law the right to life of the unborn child. In the interim we must erect obstacles every time for the pro-death lobby when they seek to advance their "final solution." We are not secular activists, rather, we are soldiers of Christ engaged in the most important battle of the war between good and evil. There will be casualties, but through the grace of God we will endure. And, shoulder-to-shoulder we who endure the most, for His name’s sake, will conquer.But you must play your part. On behalf of the girls who were strip-searched in Pearse Street, I extend our gratitude to all of you who rang the station with your complaints.I urge you all now, to write to Inspector Murphy, Pearse St. Garda Station, Dublin 2 and The Garda Commissioner, Garda HQ, Phoenix Park, Dublin 8 and express in no uncertain terms your anger and dissatisfaction at the abuse of civil rights, and basic standards of decency, which occurred. You cannot be silent and allow by your silence this to happen again. Youth Defence cannot allow their members to undergo this kind of treatment ever again. If you will not make your voice heard now, YD will be silenced by the State. The voice of the unborn will no longer be heard.

by Dr. Sean O’Domhnaill

by the tala patriot Thu May 09, 2002 13:21

Does anyone remember the farmers charging the cops a few years ago only to be met with smiles and what looked like a schoolyard game of chasing? Or the taxi drivers being allowed to bring the city to a standstill during business hours. Imagine if 'the lefties' threatened the holy grail of commerce between office hours.

I am surprised by the shock that has ensued as a result of Mondays actions. The police are just that, police. They are watchdogs and guard the state not the peace as their title claims. These so called guardians of the peace destroyed said peace in front of my, and many other peoples, eyes. I never doubted their ability to be violent but I didnt think theye were stupid enough to attempt to crack skulls in public. A case of too much TV for the boys in blue?

They will defend the state no matter how wrong it is. Think of civil rights demos in the north and in the US. It is a constant of modern history, the police will fight the people at the hint of dissent. Although this much documented violence is a newish departure on the city centre streets of dublin, garda intimidation and violence has been a constant within the confines of police stations and away from the digital lenses of Indymedia.

Calls to allow the state to police the police or the courts to issue justice are ridiculous. If these institutions could be trusted to do this we would have little or no need for protests and Monday wouldnt have developed the way it did.

Have no faith in the police, they are not worthy of it. And have no faith in a government that excuses violence by its paid thugs. And by excuses I mean failure to act accordingly. One or two will be scapegoated by the POlice/government as a gesture, policy wont change , attitude wont change and we will be left with undereducated and panicky fools who legally carry weapons and use them without due provocation.

the guards were to a degree lucky that the protestors were such a placid bunch. I was there and witnessed defiance but not aggression by the protestors. These were not and probably will never be agggressive people.

I sometimes lament that the 'working classes' and the other various victims of our own little island's version of cartel based capitalism dont attend more marches, but Im glad they werent there on Monday. The people from tallaght, summerhill, ballyfermot and other such places were not as shocked as our friends in the media by the cops attack; but they may have been surprised that they did it on camera and not in the back of a squad car.
Many of them would like an open fight with the boys in blue, and the police wouldnt have had the freedom to swing batons had they been there. In light of how bad the cops have come out of this whole affair a running battle would have been counter productive.

One or two people have been called media whores by spotting a chance to do some good at tonights demo. To miss a chance to reinforce the peaceful nature of protests is doing all future protestors a disservice. Also it is hypocritical to attend a demo and be against getting it publicised, one might as well sit at home and conjure up fantasies of equality and justice. The media has abused protestors and limited column space for dissent (Seattle made page 14 of the times,in the business section), it has polluted language to the extent that anarchy implies violence and revolution implies murder. There is no room to be aloof, we must seize the oppurtunity for a large peaceful protest to appear on national television.

by chris Thu May 09, 2002 15:35

"but gardaí said there was no disruption to traffic."

Mystery solved!