Fair play to him, but they didnt handle it very well, first of all he has to be instructed as to why he is being arrested, under what section, then he should inform the Garda that he is excercising his constitutional right to protest peacefully, also he is on a public street, his right to be in any public place (4th amendment right to free movement) is also protected by the constitution, as before, all constitutional law trumps acts of legislation, (The criminal justice act / public order act 1994, in this case). People must invoke their rights, its the only way to stop the Gardaí doing whatever they want. As soon as it became obvious they were going to arrest him, all the other protesters there should have immediately got in behind the barriers and surrounded John, then inform the Garda that if they are going to arrest him, they are going to have to arrest everyone else aswell. The Garda might call your bluff and arrest everyone, but I doubt it. And finally, if anyone is arrested, a protest outside the Garda station he is being taken to should immediately be organised, to disrupt all traffic in and out of the Garda station. They might arrest more people if you do this, but so what. The worst thing that the Garda can do to you is arrest you, but thats nothing to worry about, getting arrested is easy, no big deal, everyone should get arrested at least once just to see how lame it is. You are required to give your name to the desk sargeant, but apart from that you say nothing, not a word, then a few hours later they let you out, its a piece of cake. These are tried, tested and effective forms of peaceful civil disobedience, used by every civil rights movement ever. Furthermore, this is a civil dispute between citizens and Irish Water, its not a criminal matter. The sole purpose of the Gardaí to be there is maintain order, not take sides. The way to handle this further is to record everything, make a formal complaint to the Superintendent at the Garda station in question, and lodge a formal complaint with GSOC. People should do this individually, especially with GSOC, as every complaint will then be logged separately. And then follow it up, call them up every few days to inquire about what is being done. If these things are done on a mass scale, it WILL have an effect. You can imagine say 300 people showing up at a Garda station demanding to see the Superintendent wanting to lodge 300 separate complaints...it would cause chaos, and put them off arresting anyone else at a protest if they thought this was going to happen every time. There are only 5000 or so Garda in the state, it is how they organize and deploy their force that makes them effective, we must simply do the same. As citizens, we outnumber them about 1000 to 1. I like those odds. VIVA LA REVOLUTION !!!!.....careful now....LOL https://youtube/watch?v=cvMNY55Brhk&feature=youtu.be&a
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 15:56:26 +0000
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