"Prime Time" on RTE last night - nothing new here.
national |
crime and justice |
news report 
Friday January 09, 2004 12:30
by Indymedia Kevin - IMC Éire
RTE finally picks up the baton (pun intended)
Just a quick ego-inflating piece about how great Indymedia ireland is.
Last night's RTE programme "Prime Time" has sent shockwaves through the nation this morning, with allegations of corruption within the Garda. A retired judge gave his rule of thumb as "If the Garda presented a confession in my court from a suspect and nothing else, then they walked", basically saying that he believed confessions to be manufactured. Dick Roche TD referred to one case in particular as tantamount to torture, and other smaller cases where the Garda where involved in extreme physical violence were shown. In the mistaken identity case of Christian Coates, he was hospitalised for two days from his injuries. Coates had the misfortune to share the same surname as Shane Coates, leader of the Westies gang from Blanchardstown, which is possibly the source of the whole terrifying ordeal for him.
The report will come as news to many, but on Indymedia ireland (whose RTS May 2002 footage was shown last night), examples of Garda violence have been documented since the very small beginnings of the site, and allegations of Garda brutality are not new. In the dark days before www.indymedia.ie was up and running, people were using UK Indymedia as a place to post up news about various demos where the cops had gone beserk.
A prime example of this was the anti-privitisation demo at the Burlington Hotel (this story has the honour of being the first ever "feature" on Indymedia ireland I think..). The Garda baton charged the demonstrators outside the hotel, using whatever they could lay their hands on - sticks, torches, flagpoles, etc. One Indymedia Cameraman was arrested and was charged with a Public Order offence - which to my knowledge was dismissed in court (or perhaps not, anyone care to enlighten me on Rowan's verdict?). You can read more about this below, along with pictures, video, and audio:
http://www.indymedia.ie/archives/arch4.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/10/13630.html
Another early example of Garda brutality on Indymedia ireland was on Car Free Day 2001 (September 22nd). A "Critical Mass/Street Football" action had been advertised, which was actually a Reclaim The Streets (the best of them all IMO). Bizarrely enough up to 400 people were playing a game of football on O'Connell Street for an hour before any Garda showed up. The Garda intelligence obviously werent doing their job at the time - contrast this situation with the enormous Garda presence at the most recent "Repaint The Streets" action on Car Free Day last year. For pics and video check out:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/10/13885.html
Other left wing actions after September 11th 2001 seemed to suffer from higher levels of Garda intimidation and physical aggression. While marching from the US to the UK embassy during an SWP anti war demo (this was before they set up their IAWM front), a Garda van drove towards the middle of the crowd. Kieran Allen (the SWP leader? I am not sure) was thrown in the back of the van without any justification whatsoever. An angry crowd swarmed the van and de-arrested a woman who the Garda were trying to throw her in too.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/10/13899.html
In early 2002 after months of actions being posted on the UK IMC site, Indymedia ireland eventually got up and running to full effect, after one or two beta versions being tested. Then of course May 2002 RTS happened and Indymedia ireland went supernova, attracting a huge amount of attention for its exclusive shocking footage of the Garda beating people senseless.
Since then people began to use the site more as a resource. The newswire is littered with examples of Garda harassment and intimidation. From Shannon to working class communities, from the bin tax to the black block, the Garda have been involved in unjust physical violence against a wide variety of people. A search (nice one Vinnie) of the Indymedia archives under terms such as Garda harassment/violence/brutality yields interesting results.
Someone is poking me in the back here asking me to mention the street theatre action at the EU Justice Ministers meeting so I will. Click here for more info:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62878