Paul Murphy MEP victim of Garda Brutality in Rossport

Dublin MEP Paul Murphy was part of a Socialist Party contingent on a peaceful protest organised by the community in Rossport and the Shell to Sea campaign today.

At that protest he, and the other peaceful protesters were brutally assaulted by the Gardai. Here Paul Murphy reports on what happened.

I came to Rossport today as part of a delegation of Socialist Party members to support the community and the Shell to Sea campaign against an unsafe onshore high pressure pipeline being and to protest against the giveaway of our natural gas and oil resources to multinationals like Shell.

I have witnessed and experienced the Garda violence that is used against protestors on a daily basis. I participated in a peaceful sit-down protest in front of a truck used by Shell that had been mounted by a protester. In order to remove our peaceful sit-down protest, the Gardai used a level of violence deliberately designed to inflict pain on the protestors.

The Gardai repeatedly called for each other to target protesters’ pressure points. What this meant was made clear when my left ear was twisted repeatedly to the point of excruciating pain and I was repeatedly poked beneath the ribs in a sensitive area causing significant pain. I was also hit in the head and was violently dragged and pulled in such a manner as to rip my jumper.

I was not the only peaceful protestor to be targeted with this level of violence, other participants in the sit-down protest were treated similarly. It is a very sinister development that the Gardai are openly targeting so-called pressure points. This is a deliberate attempt to inflict significant pain on protesters to get them to give up the protest and to discourage them from participating in future protests. This development, which is a continuation of the Garda brutality which the people of the area have been subjected to for years, must be condemned. I call for an immediate and full public investigation, involving representatives of the community and the trade union movement, into the behaviour of the Gardai in Rossport over the last number of years.

Total
0
Shares
Previous Article

World economy: Capitalists unable to stop the turmoil

Next Article

A new phase of the great recession

Related Posts

Successful National Shop Stewarts Conference

As seven workers from Honda Swindon were leaving the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) conference on Saturday 11 June, one car worker remarked: "I wish we could have brought a coachload!". This was a typical reaction amongst the 350 workers attending the best conference NSSN has held so far, a regular event that is rapidly becoming a feature in the calendar of the labour movement.

Haiti Disaster compounded by capitalism

The humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen Haiti beggars belief. The powerful earthquake that struck on 12 January left many thousands dead, with estimates running to 200,000 and more. The flimsy slum dwellings in Port-au-Prince, the capital, collapsed, as did public buildings, including schools and hospitals. Many thousands are still missing and more are badly injured.