Visitor shocked by Garda treatment of protestors
Tuesday May 07 2002
British tourist Arlen Connelly said he was horrified at the garda response last night to what appeared to be a peaceful rally.
Mr Connelly, from London, was returning to his hostel in Dublin city centre yesterday evening when he saw riot vans and other garda cars converging on a 'Reclaim the Streets' rally.
He grabbed his camera and started taking photographs as the gardai moved in on the marchers.
When he reached the protestors, they were sitting down on the road and preventing a police car from getting through, but Mr Connelly insisted "it was not an aggressive thing".
Then the marchers stood up again and continued on through the city. At this stage, the crowd had elongated and was about a quarter of a mile long, he estimated.
Mr Connelly said extra police began arriving and "hemmed in" a couple of hundred protestors. "There were a lot of bystanders mixed up in it, girls and families. People came out of restaurants to see what was going on.
"Then the batons came out. There were people being hit and injured," he said.
Mr Connelly said the crowd started getting angry because they had seen people get hurt "for no reason at all. There was one guy on the ground and he was bleeding and they were still pushing him out off the street," he claimed. He said that others asked the gardai where they could take the injured for medical attention and were given no help.
Mr Connelly had been holidaying in Donegal until yesterday.
- Grainne Cunningham
