{"id":105886,"date":"2025-10-06T23:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/105886\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T23:28:08","slug":"people-before-profit-allege-garda-brutality-against-pro-palestine-protesters-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/105886\/","title":{"rendered":"People Before Profit allege Garda \u2018brutality\u2019 against pro-Palestine protesters \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

People Before Profit<\/a> and activist groups have condemned what they described as \u201cexcessive and illegal use of force\u201d by garda\u00ed against pro-Palestine<\/a> protesters at the weekend, allegedly resulting in several injuries.<\/p>\n

Thousands of people marched through Dublin\u2019s city centre towards Leinster House on Saturday<\/a> in the 17th national mobilisation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign<\/a> (IPSC) since October 2023. <\/p>\n

Conor Reddy, People Before Profit councillor for Dublin north west, said he witnessed violence used by garda\u00ed against a separate breakaway group of what he said were \u201caround 150 peaceful protesters\u201d who were marching towards Dublin Port<\/a> when they encountered a Garda line. <\/p>\n

Last Thursday evening, a similar demonstration in support of those on board the Gaza<\/a> aid flotilla had blocked the southbound lane of the Dublin Port Tunnel<\/a>, disrupting traffic. <\/p>\n

Videos posted online at the weekend appear to show incapacitant spray and long batons being used on protesters by the Garda Public Order Unit in the East Wall area of Dublin on Saturday. <\/p>\n

Two people were arrested for public order offences after a \u201cco-ordinated effort to breach\u201d a cordon at the port, garda\u00ed said.<\/p>\n

One member of the group, who has asked to remain anonymous while his case was being investigated by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties<\/a>, sought medical attention on Saturday after sustaining a broken wrist.<\/p>\n

Video footage seen by The Irish Times appears to show the 26-year-old man approach a Garda at the protest with both his hands up. The Garda is then seen pushing the man, who falls backwards on to the ground.<\/p>\n

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy<\/a> called for an \u201curgent D\u00e1il debate this week on the Garda violence against Palestine protesters\u201d and he demanded a statement from Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In a statement on Monday, Mr Murphy said several protesters had been injured \u201cincluding one with a broken wrist and multiple head injuries\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s reasonable to presume that people were going down there to engage in civil disobedience,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think that justifies this disproportionate level of violence from garda\u00ed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, the Dublin South-West TD joined an international flotilla of aid-carrying boats hoping to break Israel\u2019s long-standing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. <\/p>\n

He described the scenes on Saturday as \u201cthe most extreme display of Garda violence in a long time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Murphy spoke at the IPSC demonstration at the D\u00e1il on Saturday. However, he did not attend the \u201cbreakaway\u201d protest with Mr Reddy. <\/p>\n

Having joined the smaller protest after marching to Leinster House, Mr Reddy described what he saw as an \u201cexcessive and illegal\u201d use of force by garda\u00ed on the crowd, which included \u201cPalestinians who have lost family members in Gaza, students, older people and people with disabilities\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t over emphasise how new and young a lot of these people are,\u201d he said, saying the use of force \u201cfelt like a punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ballymun-Finglas councillor expressed concern at what he believed constituted a breach of Garda protocol where dispersants were \u201cused much closer than the one-metre minimum distance\u201d and batons were used at head height.<\/p>\n

The IPSC, the Student Neutrality Front and Boycott Divest Sanction groups from Trinity College, UCD and DCU also issued statements criticising the response.<\/p>\n

In response to questions, a Garda spokesperson said there was a constitutional right to peaceable assembly \u201csubject to statutory provisions\u201d including the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny Garda activity in relation to evolving events involves a graduated policing response taking into account relevant legislation and public safety, with enforcement as a last resort,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a> conducted two separate interventions in the course of these public gatherings in response to co-ordinated and concerted efforts to physically breach the Garda cordon, while on occasion also being subject to a number of missiles thrown towards Garda members.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the second intervention, members of the Garda National Public Order Unit, dressed in \u2019soft cap\u2019 uniform, supported by frontline uniformed garda\u00ed, once again intervened to prevent a breach of the Garda cordon which included the use of incapacitant spray and baton.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs previously highlighted, two individuals were arrested in the East Wall area for public order offences.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na has no further comment at this time on operational matters related to this public disorder incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny person who believes that they were treated inappropriately by a member of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na is invited to make a complaint regarding their interaction to the office of the independent police ombudsman, Fiosr\u00fa.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People Before Profit and activist groups have condemned what they described as \u201cexcessive and illegal use of force\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[956,9,10,35975,66420,18,13,14,3761,6,19,17,66419,66421,26735,11,12,15,16,5,72,27172,27171,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-105886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-dublin-port","12":"tag-dublin-port-tunnel","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-gaza-strip","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-ireland-palestine-solidarity-campaign","21":"tag-irish-council-for-civil-liberties","22":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","23":"tag-latest-news","24":"tag-latestnews","25":"tag-main-news","26":"tag-mainnews","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-palestine","29":"tag-paul-murphy","30":"tag-people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps","31":"tag-top-stories","32":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}