What I saw on May 6th

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday May 08, 2002 21:54 by David Christopher Dublin

Letter to the editor of the Irish Times

8th May, 2002

The Editor,
The Irish Times,
10-13 D’Olier Street,
Dublin 2.

Dear Sir,

I am a young person who has been an active participant in our democratic process all my adult life. During my time in college, I involved myself with both the Green Party and the Independent Unionist society. I have voted in every single election and referendum since I have come of age.

I beg a little of your paper’s space, and of your reader’s time, in order to explain why I am presently questioning whether it is worthwhile for me to take part in the forthcoming General Election.

On Monday afternoon, I took part in a protest in Dublin city centre, which was loosely organised by a diverse range of groups, including Friends of the Irish Environment, the Dublin Cycling Campaign and Reclaim the Streets. The idea behind this non-violent protest was to pedestrianise a section of the city centre (Burgh Quay) for an afternoon, and thereby replace the usual grey stream of odious traffic with something colourful, spontaneous, spectacular and creative. Hence the drummers, the talented capoeira dancers, the colourful poi artists, and the sheer sense of spectacle – one observer described it as “kindly chaos” - apparent to everyone present. Through the use of music, colour and dance, it was shown what our streets could look like with a little less traffic and a little more imagination.

After a long sunny afternoon on Burgh Quay, I was with a group of friends as the protest moved off at about 7pm down the Quays. The protest was to march down Dame Street, through the city centre and then disperse at St. Stephen’s Green. The protest was peaceful, and people taking part were tired and happy. I noticed a number of Gardaí without their numerical identification tags. This was making me very worried, even before the violence began.

By the time we reached the Central Bank, I was near the front of the march, just at the point when it was set upon by a vanload of Gardaí, who started trying to literally beat the protest off the street. Over the next hour I witnessed scenes which were almost surreal in their savagery, and which were absolutely terrifying to anyone who happened to be on the receiving end of the Garda action – including members of the public and passers-by as well as innocent protestors.

The whole of that hour is etched in my memory, but some scenes stand out with particular clarity.

On Dame Street, in front of Trinity College, a group of about a dozen Gardaí, many without numerical identification, baton charged a group of protestors, who were standing on the pavement, chanting “peaceful protest”. Protestors were already thick up against the wall and could move back no further, but the Gardaí continued moving forward, swinging wildly. I had always thought that they were trained to use these batons. I watched disbelievingly as Gardai aimed baton strikes straight at people’s heads. Gardaí were surrounding people, pinning them down whilst other Gardaí beat the living daylights out of them with batons. The batons were flying wildly and indiscriminately.

Several individual Gardaí had clearly lost the run of themselves, and seemed to be acting without regard for the consequences. By this stage I was very concerned both for my own safety and that of my friends. Like everybody else, I was doing my best to get out of the vicinity of the Garda assault. It seemed to be a matter of random chance as to which people were being attacked. At one stage a group of Gardaí attacked bystanders who were waiting in the taxi queue on Dame Street. Some of them had been remonstrating with Gardaí, so presumably they were taken for protestors and given the appropriate treatment.

Indeed, by this point many mostly middle-aged and elderly people were coming out of cafes and restaurants to remonstrate with Gardaí. One elderly couple later joined the protest as it made its way through Temple Bar. At the time, this was an act of some considerable bravery on their part.

There were many injured people, all of them either protestors or bystanders. I most vividly remember seeing a girl who could not have been more than 16, with blood streaming down her face. I could not believe my eyes; these scenes I will never forget. I didn’t notice it at the time, but later I learnt that two Gardaí had held a friend of mine, who was a passer-by and not involved in the protest at all, in a headlock whilst a third Garda battered him repeatedly.

There was little consistency in the Garda approach. Whilst many of the Gardaí seemed to relish in the violence against the protestors, I saw a few who were hanging back and who seemed uneasy about what was happening. Nobody seemed to be in charge. I overheard one Garda sergeant instruct his subordinate “Just hit them hard, or else we’ll look like idiots”. The blue overcoat clad senior officers were either not present, or were looking the other way, when the most serious police violence was happening.

I observed countless acts of harassment against journalists from both the independent and mainstream media, which included the arrest of an Irish Independent journalist. One Garda made an unprovoked assault upon a journalist from IndyMedia, despite his clear media identification and the fact that he was filming from the pavement. The camera lens was punched, and the battery ripped out. At the time, this journalist was filming two other Gardaí viciously walloping a friend of mine multiple times with a baton, for the crime of practising his capoeira skills in the street.

As night fell, I again made contact with my friends, one of whom now had a pronounced limp and who wished to make a complaint about the manner in which he had been treated. We proceeded to Pearse Street Garda Station, but the smirking Garda at the desk refused to listen to any of the (dozens of) people queuing to make a complaint, putting them off with the excuse that only a sergeant could take a complaint. We waited patiently for quite some time, but of course to no avail.

This was the point at which something really changed for me. In a democratic society, when one has a complaint to make, one has the right to go and make it. The police are meant to be public servants, not our masters. Even after all that I had seen that day, I had not expected for this most basic of rights to be so summarily refused.

For pretty much the first time, I realised that the Gardaí are accountable to nobody in this country. If someone has a complaint to make about the actions of a Garda, who do they make it to? The Gardaí. Who investigates this complaint? Why, again it’s the Gardaí. If that’s how those bully-boys act on the street in public and in broad daylight, I can only shudder to think how they treat people when they get them behind closed doors. An Ombudsman is not enough. Video cameras should be required by law in all police vans and in Garda interview rooms.

What I had seen with my own eyes by the time dusk fell on Monday evening, I would not have believed possible on Monday morning. I am keenly aware of the gravity of what I am saying. I do not make such statements lightly. The video evidence taken on the day bears me out. The Gardaí must immediately place in the public domain all video footage that was taken by them on Monday evening, and most especially the footage from the police helicopter. Whether they will do so I just don’t know. Before Monday, I hadn’t realised things were as bad as this.

My view of the society we live in, of the quality of democracy we enjoy in this republic, has been changed utterly. I will never see things in quite the same way again. Having been bludgeoned from the streets in the course of expressing my rights to freedom of assembly and peaceful protest, I now question how worthwhile it is for me to vote in two weeks time. If I do vote, it will be in the certain knowledge that to vote is not enough - that democracy demands a much more active participation by her citizens if democracy is to be strong, and safeguard the rights of everybody. Without that active participation, the quality of democracy will wither away, and scenes like we saw last Monday will grow more frequent, and less remarked-upon.

Our democracy has been compromised. It’s up to all of us to do something about it.