Amnesty International yesterday published a report on how protests are policed in different European countries. The report entitled Under Protected and Over Restricted: The State of the Right to Protest in 21 European Countries voices concerns regarding how certain protests are handled, including by the Irish authorities.
As readers will know from its coverage of the “hate speech” debate, our liberal mainstream media takes an unusual stance on such matters. Thus it was little surprise to find that the Irish Examiner take from the report was that the Irish state is deficient in not requiring all protests to be notified to the Gardaí.
There you go. Sort of sums them up does it not. Mind you the bias of the report itself would indicate that its authors consider some protests to be more worthy of protection than others. The report’s cover has 12 individual shots of protests and rallies. You can judge for yourself.
Not one photo of the many large protests around Europe against illegal immigration, nor of the massive farmers’ protests in several European states, nor of demonstrations against crimes committed by illegal immigrants, nor of demonstrations opposed to leftist/Islamic attacks on Jews.
Similarly, the introduction to the report refers to “heightened barriers to protest, for example, because they are subjected to inequality, marginalization, racism, discrimination and violence because of their race, ethnicity, religion and/or migration status.”
So if you are expecting that perhaps there might be any mention of the sort of Garda handling of “certain” protests witnessed by Fatima Gunning and others at Newtownmountkennedy, and elsewhere, I am afraid you shall be disappointed. Nor is there any reference to potentially violent counter-protests against pro life events, nor of police and Garda restrictions on such events.
Then again, Amnesty International – unlike one of its founders Seán McBride – now considers abortion to be a human right. So our expectations cannot be too high of what is little more than another left-liberal foundation-funded advocacy NGO.
Even with all of that, Amnesty still notes concerns regarding their own view that “No ‘authorization’ regime should be put in place for assemblies, intended as processes to seek ‘permission’ for assemblies (rather than mere provision of notice of the intention to assemble) (Chapter 2 on authorization regimes).”
Ironically, that is the very thing that the Irish Examiner heading would perhaps lead you to imagine was something that the Amnesty report was demanding. Mind you, that point is immediately followed in the Amnesty report by another which states that legislation on notifications and restrictions ought “confine the regulatory scope of the law only to assemblies that likely impact on the rights of others.”
This, of course, provides a convenient excuse for restricting even pro life vigils if whoever gets to decide these things takes the view that the putative “rights” of some group, on the list of left liberal Most Oppressed People Ever, not to be offended are at issue. That this is no idle musing is confirmed by the experience of people who have had to deal with the Gardaí regarding such matters.
The entire thrust and implication of the text, with its numerous references to black people, heteronormativity, patriarchy, racism, marginalisation and all the other trigger words, pummels the party line that if you are not part of that Elect then not only is your right to protest – and any batterings you might encounter including from outraged MOPEs – of little concern to Amnesty International, but that perhaps you don’t have any business to be protesting in the first place.
That is evident in the country reports. The major protests in the Netherlands over the past few years have been those involving farmers and rural communities. Some of these protests were greeted by heavy-hand policing, including a widely reported incident of a policeman firing a shot at a protesting farmer.
Yet in the dozens of references to the Netherlands in this report, the only one to the huge farmer protests is to a claim that “climate justice” protestors were treated harshly in comparison to the apparent favourable treatment of the farmers. Other than one of them having been shot, how was this so? Solely referenced to a January 2023 story: “RUG lecturer sees climate activists being dealt with more harshly than farmers.” None of them were shot by the way.
Cutting edge human rights research this is not then. As can also be seen from the fact that almost every single other reference to abuses in the Netherlands have to do with self-reported claims by XR climate extremists, Black Bloc ultra leftists, and student groups about protests being dispersed, stop and search methods, removal of blockades and so on.
There are comparatively few references to protests and their policing in Ireland and the Gardaí even get favourable mention for their role in “vindicating the human rights of each individual.” It is not all good news for Drew Harris and his Marvel Comic defenders of the citizens, and especially the non-citizens, against The Man.
Among the black marks against Old Bill is their policing of the legislation against “brothel keeping” which is deemed to be having a “chilling effect” on the economic activities of “sex workers.” (p50). Most ludicrous of all, however, are the report’s references to how the Peelers used their powers during the Covid Panic.
Many of you might have formed the false impression , as I did myself , that the weight of the state during the lockdowns was directed against people who were either knowingly or inadvertently breaking some of the more absurd and arbitrary restrictions, or engaged in organised protests against the restrictions themselves.
I seem to recall at least one baton charge of protestors in Dublin city centre, not to mention people being arrested at Christian religious ceremonies and even falling under Garda notice for subversively walking their dogs, but perhaps I misremember.
Or perhaps I was misinformed about the nature of the protests because Amnesty here make no mention of any of that but do inform me that a January 23 report by the United Nations Human Rights Commission found that there had been “excessive use of force by police against protestors in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic disproportionately affecting specific communities such as young persons, ethnic and racial minorities, Travellers and Roma.”
Seriously, like when did this happen? What protests by the above groups are they talking about? Maybe the Irish Times can assist us here because one of their pieces from September 29, 2020 appears to be the only source for another claim made in the report. This one states that: “In Ireland, the police (Gardai) facilitated protests against Covid-19 lockdown rules, but restricted counter-protesters who were supporting the Covid-19 restrictions by pushing them back or preventing them from entering a rally site.” (p94.)
In the Looking Glass world of the Irish liberal Left, the heroes are the people protesting in support of the State against citizens protesting against the State. Just as the defenders of “freedom” are those pushing for restrictions on free speech, and the enemies of freedom are those who argue against this – all backed if needs be by the sort of aspirant far-leftist militia which attempted to flex its puny muscle during the above counter-protests. We live in a land that has grown strange, for sure.
The same evident bias is clear across all of the country reports where the focus is solely upon protests and complaints by those on the Left. It is apparent from the references that most of these themselves are based on national reports by NGOs and activist groups. Which would suggest a highly self-referential nexus of self-reporting that feeds into Amnesty itself at national and international level.
It might be argued that the deficiency in reporting how protests of the anti-establishment “right” are policed is due to participants not making complaints. But who ought they to be complaining to? Would Amnesty Ireland or Netherlands or the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, or its Dutch equivalent, bother to follow these up or include them in their reports?
Your guess is as good as mine, but then again the ICCL and Amnesty and the left liberal TDs and advocacy groups are hardly unaware of what has happened at protests such as those at Newtownmountkennedy. Nor of the attempts made by leftist groups to disrupt or have the state disrupt protests which they do not like.
They do not need to be told, for we all know what has happened in different locations. So too does Amnesty International Ireland and no more than when it was concentrating on the actual human rights abuses of persons living in the former socialist states it does not need to rely on official reports or emails from the local Party branch.