Gardai attack anti-fascist protestors

Gardai chaotically clubbed anti-fascist protestors as well as members of the media when a racist event in Dublin city centre last weekend was opposed by left-wing and republican groups.

The German anti-Islamic group Pegida, attempting to organise in Dublin, had planned to march to the GPO in O’Connell Street last Saturday.

As the protestors gathered, there were clashes with Pegida members on nearby North Earl Street, and members of the Garda ‘public order’ unit then began to beat the anti-fascist activists. Two cameramen and an independent observer were hit as the Gardai lashed out in a wild manner.

An RTE spokeswoman said it would make a formal complaint after a video clip showed that a senior staff cameraman was deliberately targeted by one out-of-control garda.

Republican Sinn Fein praised the protestors for their tenacity in preventing the extreme far-right organisation from forming in Dublin.

It said Pegida included loyalists, neo-Nazis, racists and fascists, all of whom “have no place in an Ireland of equals”.

Representatives from a range of groups including Sinn Fein, RSF, eirigi, People Before Profit, the Workers Solidarity Movement and Irish Muslim organisations assembled close to the Spire to demonstrate against the Pegida launch, which was eventually aborted.

Anti-Austerity Alliance election candidate Michael O’Brien said the people had come out to resist Pegida and stop it getting off the ground.

“We’ve seen on the European continent and Britain what a menace the far right is to migrants and also to trade unions and social activists,” he said.

Speaking at the protest, Dublin Sinn Fein MEP Lynn Boylan said: “We must be extremely vigilant to the insidious creeping of racist policy into the mainstream.

“It is each and everyone of our responsibility to call out racism where and when we see it. That includes discriminatory policies against Travellers.”

Urgent Appeal