Students protested, gardaí brutalised and the media covered it up

Last Wednesday 25 000 students marched on the Dept of Finance to protest the proposed doubling of "registration" fees. Various news outlets reported that Eirigi and extreme lefty organisations attacked gardaí and spoiled the day for everyone. Gardaí reported injuries.

Irish Times

Gardaí began removing protesters they had previously trapped in the lobby. There were physical altercations between them and a female garda was struck. Some protesters put up strong resistance to gardaí, kicking out as they sought to remove them. Some of the protesters exited the building with evidence of a beating on their faces... One hoodie-clad youth alongside picked up a piece of timber and threw it at the foyer, from where the protesters were being removed

Independent 

When those pensioners stood up to a Government threatening them with cuts they were regarded as being brave and merry. Yet when students embark upon the same journey they are branded as disgraceful and violent.


RTE

A number of people were injured during scuffles with gardaí on Merrion Row, while three gardaí received medical attention after being injured by objects thrown by protestors. One garda was admitted to hospital with a broken nose, the other two gardaí were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

TV3

Witnesses said a brick and eggs were thrown at the building and that a group of about 15 students made it inside. Gardaí later ejected them.

USI president Gary Redmond condemned the violence loudly and on every media outlet he could get on. And the whole thing was dismissed.

Until modern technology showed what actually happened. YouTube videos show the excessive violence used by the gardaí. Violence starts about 3:00







If you don't want to watch them all, here are some stills


























There are plenty of questions that need answering.

Why did the riot police advance on a peaceful crowd?
Why did gardaí bludgeon people sitting on the ground?
Why were horses raced into a departing crowd?
Why did the media not mention the police brutality?
Why did the media focus only on the eggs thrown by the students?
Who authorised excessive force?
Who is making the incompetent decisions?

Who seriously sends riot police, K9 units, mounted gardaí and guards on wheels into a non attacking crowd? That often lead to deaths and serious injuries. Clearly the powers that be have been anticipating a rioting populace. This time it was students protests hikes in registration costs. What will happen when it is a group of people who have nothing left to lose, can't feed their families and have been evicted?

Fachtna Murphy should not be allowed to retire. He should be fired by the Minister for Justice. But the Irish government does not read the writing on the wall. The fundamentalist Minister for Justice is too busy passing restrictive, mediaeval blasphemy laws.


In Thud, Terry Pratchett, now the adjunct professor in the School of English in TCD, wrote quite a bit on the relationship between the police force and the people

You see your people looking at you and wondering whose side you're on, yes? Well, you're on the side of the people, which is where the law ought to be. All the people, I mean, who're out there beyond the mob, who're fearful and puzzled and scared to go out at night. Now, funnily enough, the idiots who're out there right in front of you getting their self-defence in first are also the people

The people that the gardaí were battering and brutalising are the same people whose human rights they are supposed to uphold, at least according to section 2 paragraph 7.1(c) of the Garda Síochána Act of 2005. So much for the Guardians of the Peace.

ETA: Obviously, this does not refer to all the gardaí who upload the law and work with people.

Calamity Coughlan

This is what an actual political interview looks like when the government does not have a leash on the media. The Oirish Shteate Run Maydja could learn something from this:








The points I noticed when not cringing

• Avoiding the questions
• Looks hungover
• "realisation of Irish psyche"
• "Don't say that"
• Interviewer's eyebrow seems about to fly off his face
• Plays the "everyone was at fault" chestnut
• "We supported vulnerable people"
• "Everyone agrees..."
• "We feel good about ourselves"
• "If we compare ourselves to the poorest countries..."

 *EPIC HEADDESK*

It wasn't our fault

Mini Dev was on Prime Time tonight blathering on about the weather and the floods. It was all the rain’s fault was the gist of his mumblings. Yeah but he’s leaving out (a) the lack of preparedness, (b) lack of maintenance of the waterways, (c) building in flood plains and (d) lack of a comprehensive communications strategy.

Why have none of the professional media investigated the ESB's release of 535 cubic metres of water per second at high tide without adequate warning in Cork? Really I want to know. Why is our media competent only at stirring up divisions between the public and private sectors?

Irish Times unaware of the meanings of words

From the IT

A RESIDENT of Roscommon has been jailed for four years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court for repeatedly having sex with and indecently assaulting his younger sister in the 1980s.

It's not sex, it's rape.

Perhaps it's time for a new editor.

Death and the media

Growing up in the Ireland of the 80s and 90s there were always funerals on the news. The troubles revealed a tendency in the Irish press to always go for the easy headline - the coffin. RTE seems to have a particular fetish for funerals but the Irish Times now follows suit. With JOD's scandalous expenses, NAMA, the recession and all the rest of the shit, why are the papers full of Seb Crane?

It is disgusting to wring every cent out of families grief. Why are the Irish press obsessed with coffin shots? Coverage of every aspect of this boy's death is not necessary and is no news. It's is terrible but it's not news. At least not enough for so many cover stories.

Young people are killed often, both by accident and with malice aforethought. Is his death and funeral being covered because he's a rich, upper middle class boy? Because Phil Coulter knew the family? Why is this boy's death being turned into an orgy of newspaper stories? Stabbing victims from working class families do not get the same treatment. Maybe it's time to admit that our society is deeply unequal. The press cares about the rich boys from good families. Everyone else can pass by the wayside or are accused in being partly responsible for their own murder.

Don't leave it to the pros

Ireland held its European and local elections on Friday. It is now Tuesday and the results are not completely finalised but the winners have been determined.

The coverage of the election by the traditional media was lacking, to say the least

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