Oct 2023 – Page 19

No Jab, No School? Big Pharma $$ and Vaccine Mania still rule in Ireland and Britain

from thefreeonline on 6th October 23 by Gavin O’Reilly at Off-Guardian

Deaths from flu declined sharply during the middle of the 20th century, long before the huge vaccine campaigns that kicked off the 21st century.

Last Thursday it was announced that the southern Irish state would roll out Flu jabs to all schoolchildren under its jurisdiction, despite the fact that children are an age group at absolute minute risk of becoming seriously ill from seasonal illnesses such as Flu and colds.

This comes less than three months after an effectively identical announcement was made by the British government, regarding the rollout of the Flu jab to upwards of three million children in English schools.

A similar announcement was made by the British government in October 2019, however that plan was scrapped due to lack of supplies.

The flu vaccine is too deadly to be used and should be pulled from the market – The Free

AstraZeneca, the manufacturer of the nasal-spray that was to be given to schoolchildren in England, blamed this on a hold-up of an analysis of that year’s Flu season by the WHO, which was to be then given to pharmaceutical firms in order to determine how many products were to be developed.

On the 18^th of October 2019, the same day it was announced that plans had been scrapped to provide schoolchildren in England with Flu jabs, Event 201 was held in New York.

Organised by John Hopkins University, in conjunction with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum, Event 201 was a simulation exercise which envisaged a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe, the effects of which could only be mitigated by even greater integration between the public and private sector worldwide.

The timing of this announcement in 2019, and the new announcements that Flu jabs would be rolled out to schoolchildren in Ireland and Britain, arouses suspicion.

This included giving social media outlets sweeping powers to deal with what the exercise termed ‘disinformation’ amidst the hypothetical pandemic .

In even further coincidence, Wuhan was home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based NGO with links to the Gates Foundation, was conducting research on the transmission of coronaviruses from bats to humans, using funds granted by Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In what can only be described as an outstanding coincidence, less than a month later, the world’s first case of the alleged ‘COVID-19’ virus was discovered in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s central Hubei province.

Several months later in March 2020, the WHO, an organisation with a history of corruption and undisclosed ties to pharmaceutical giants, announced the official beginning of the ‘COVID-19 Pandemic’.

What followed next was unprecedented.

Vast swathes of society were closed down across the world, ostensibly to protect the sick and vulnerable from an alleged virus, the mortality rate of which made it no more dangerous than the seasonal illnesses which coincidentally disappeared for two years in all countries following WHO procedures, only to be ‘replaced’ by a ‘virus’ with the exact same symptoms.

In reality, lockdowns would do far more to flatten small businesses than to save lives, with the dependency on corporate outlets created as a result of these measures leading to the upwards transfer of more than $1tn in wealth.

In yet another coincidence, this example of governments and the private sector working in lockstep bore a striking similarity to what was outlined in Event 201, and also aligned perfectly with the WEF’s Great Reset initiative, launched in June 2020, which again reiterated that the only way to mitigate the effects of the ‘Covid Pandemic’ was to give the corporate class even greater sway over public life worldwide.

One of the key facets of the Great Reset is the introduction of a Digital ID, one which would give the government-corporate alliance an authoritarian level of control over its citizens should it be made mandatory, which during the ‘Covid Pandemic’, is effectively what happened.

Following the announcement of the ‘Covid Vaccine’ on the first business day after the 2020 US Presidential election (again, more coincidental timing), 2021 would see multiple countries around the world introduce legislation requiring their citizens to have been jabbed before they could participate in everyday life.

To implement this, the standard practice was to place a QR code on their smartphone once they had been jabbed, one which would grant them access to restaurants, bars, gyms and other amenities prohibited to those who had chosen to not take part in a global medical experiment.

Essentially, this was a dry-run for the rollout of a mandatory digital ID, using an alleged ‘Pandemic’ as the pretext.

The introduction of jab passports however, would lead to a worldwide protest movement in defence of human rights. In response, the corporate media would begin a demonization campaign against these protesters, labelling them as ‘far-right’, and WEF-aligned governments would launch a brutal crackdown.

Perhaps this was most notable in Canada, where the government of WEF ‘Young Global Leader’ Justin Trudeau would attack demonstrators with teargas and mounted Horses, and freeze their bank accounts using emergency legislation.

The impact of this global protest movement likely played a part in the sudden collapse of the ‘Pandemic’ media narrative in early 2022, shortly after the WEF’s Davos Agenda virtual event.

The Russian operation that began in Ukraine shortly after, following almost nine years of western provocations, would serve as a convenient cover story by the mainstream media for the global inflation caused by lockdown measures.

However, with lockstep announcements that Britain, under the rule of WEF member Rishi Sunak, and the southern Irish state, overseen by WEF ‘Young Global Leader’ Leo Varadkar, will be rolling out a product to schoolchildren, for an illness that poses an absolute miniscule risk to their age group, it may only be a matter of time until the ‘Pandemic’ narrative is repeated for schoolchildren in both countries, with it being made mandatory for them to have a Flu jab before they are granted an education.

Gavin O’Reilly is an Irish Republican activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism; he was a writer for the American Herald Tribune from January 2018 up until their seizure by the FBI in 2021, with his work also appearing on The Duran, Al-Masdar, MintPress News, Global Research and SouthFront. He can be reached through Twitter and Facebook and supported on Patreon.

Flu Vaccines ”Worthless And Dangerous” Not only is the vaccine not safe, Dr. Blaylock tells Newsmax Health, it doesn’t even work

“Omicron milder than Flu and gives Immunity” / May END pandemic – The Free

Why the Flu has Vanished.. Vaccinating against flu may have ‘replaced it with Covid’.. – The Free

Flu away: Scientists baffled at disappearance of influenza…

– Study: Flu Vaccine Causes 5.5 Times More Respiratory Infections – A True Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Study
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/study-flu-vaccine-causes-5-5-times-more-respiratory-infections-a-true-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-study/

– CDC list of flu vaccine ingredients
Please note that Thimerosal used as a preservative in some of the flu vaccines is 49.6% ethyl-mercury.

– Are US flu death figures more PR than science? Related: HERE & HERE

– Canadian Flu Deaths reality check

– Cochrane Collaboration: Flu Vaccines of No Benefit

– A Shot Never Worth Taking: The Flu Vaccine ~ by Kelly Brogan, MD
November 27, 2013

– The Flu Vaccine: Something to Sneeze At ~ by Roman Bystri

France abandons Niger mines, leaving workers with no electricity, toxic water, and 20 million tons of wind blown radioactive waste

from thefreeonline on 5th Oct 2023 by By Linda Pentz Gunter, at AlJazeera, and beyondnuclearinternational ,

Uranium tailings in Niger are blowing in the wind and poisoning the water

Note: In late July, a military coup ousted Niger’s president, Mohamed Bazoum. Since then, those who have declared themselves in charge have announced a halt to uranium exports to France. France relies on Niger for around 17% of the uranium that fuels its troubled commercial reactor fleet (with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan the main suppliers). Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European countries have been wrestling with their uncomfortable dependence on Russian-sourced uranium supplies. The Russian mercenary group, Wagner, already has a strong presence in Africa, and one that is now growing.

The grey mountain looms, mirage-like, on the horizon of the uranium mining town of Arlit in Niger.

Except, this is the Sahel, and it’s not a real mountain. It’s a pile of radioactive uranium mine tailings, blowing around in the desert winds and dispersing into the air, soil, waterways and people’s bodies.

A group of women and their children rush towards an emergency feeding centre in Niger UN Aid just a patch-up to continue African ‘Debt Cash Cow’ and Colonial Looting

The “mountain” is part of a legacy of an estimated 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste left behind by the French mine owner, Areva, now known as Orano, which closed its Arlit uranium mines in March 2021.

A report on Radio France International described the situation this way: “Niger’s northern town of Arlit has been left wallowing in 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste after a uranium mine run by French company Orano (formerly Areva) closed down. People living in the area are exposed to levels of radiation above the limits recommended by health experts.”

This lethal legacy has been confirmed by the independent French radiological research laboratory — Commission de Recherche et d’Information Indépendantes sur la Radioactivité — known in international circles simply as CRIIRAD. The lab, and its director, Bruno Chareyron, have been studying the situation around uranium mines in Niger for years. In 2009 his lab measured the radioactive levels of the wastes at 450,000 Becquerels per kilogram.

mRNA ‘vaccines’ must be banned once and for all – secret Pfizer Report/ videos /-

‘Pfizer’s Covid 19 Vaccine constitutes a Criminal Act. From a legal standpoint it is an “Act of Murder” applied Worldwide to a target population of 8 billion people’.

–from thefreeonline on 5th Oct 2023 by Angus Dalgleish and Der Friedensstifter

THOSE of us who knew from the beginning that the sequence of CoV-SARS-2 contained inserts which could not have possibly occurred naturally, and were similar to ones that had already been published, have had to endure unbelievable scorn, scientific ostracism and the ignominy of being ‘cancelled’ by the MSM as well as by professional colleagues for nearly three years now.

In the summer of 2020 a paper I co-authored, describing the findings of an Anglo-Norwegian team of scientists who had demonstrated unique ‘fingerprints’ of laboratory manipulation in the Covid virus, was suppressed in both the US and UK.

Video: Pfizer’s “Secret” Report on the Covid Vaccine. Beyond Manslaughter. The Evidence is Overwhelming. The Vaccine MUST Be Immediately Withdrawn Worldwide https://odysee.com/$/embed/chossudovsky1605202/ef1e9663552d0d27af7c29f18a6b67f6b42d55f8?r=6TjYesarycqSsuwHsqysS9brM6KNrLDX

This was at the time that the World Health Organization, leading science journals and others were going to huge lengths to persuade us that Covid was a natural occurrence, and that we should spend a lot more money to fight any such future threats.

Only now does the Telegraph (uncritically) report that the US government is no longer going to fund the research it denied doing for nearly three years and the MSM sat on.

Yet it has been an open secret for anyone who follows primary sources of information (the ones ignored by the MSM and the BBC specifically, reported as misinformation by Ofcom and targeted by the Orwellian Counter-Disinformation Cell of the UK government) that mRNA vaccines did not do what it says on the vial, as it were.

First the ‘vaccine’ did not stay at the site of injection as promised but travelled throughout the body and were found at post-mortems to be everywhere.

Accusations of dramatic variations in batch-to-batch variability – an absolute ‘no no’ in vaccine manufacture protocols – which could explain why side effects were more common in some batches than others were denied but were borne out by definitive Danish research reported here. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/vaccine-dangers-is-this-the-strongest-evidence-yet/

These alarming concerns seem to have been brushed off by the regulators when they should have immediately begun investigating them in depth.

All the while the regulatory authorities and politicians, parroting their ‘highest standards’ assurances, have repeatedly declared the mounting disturbing UK Yellow Card and US VAERS adverse event reports to be nothing to be worried about.

video.. Steve Kirsch… Covid Hoax Collapsing

Last June, whistleblowers led by the scientists Sucharit Bhakdi and Kevin McKernan raised an entirely new issue of concern – that of serious levels of DNA contamination.

Once again this was ignored by the MSM. Though quite happy to report the odd side effect from the vaccines as an excuse to point out that they are extremely rare, they have never addressed the increasingly problematic official ‘safe and effective’ mantra.

Early in 2023, genomics scientist Kevin McKernan made an accidental discovery. While running an experiment in he blew the lid on serious levels of contamination of both Pfizer and Moderna mRNA Covid vaccines.

Finally there was a small breakthrough. An isolated but braver branch of the MSM in the form of the Spectator Australia has finally blown the lid on serious levels of contamination of both Pfizer and Moderna mRNA Covid vaccines.

The article describes how the genomics scientist Kevin McKernan from Boston used Pfizer and Moderna vials as controls in a study only to find that they contained highly significant DNA plasmid contamination.

It reports that McKernan was alarmed to find the presence of an SV40 promoter in the Pfizer vaccine vials, a sequence that is ‘used to drive DNA into the nucleus, especially in gene therapies’ and that this is ‘something that regulatory agencies around the world have specifically said is not possible with the mRNA vaccines’.

These SV40 promoters are also well recognised as being oncogenic or cancer-inducing.

Others have confirmed these findings. A German biologist whistleblower has found contamination rates of up to 354 times the recommended limit. All this has been reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is highly significant.

To put it bluntly, this means that they are not vaccines at all but Genetically Modified Organisms that should have been subject to totally different regulatory conditions and certainly not be classed as vaccines.

This has been recognised by the Australian version of the FDA, the TGA, which has changed the picture so much that the Premier of Victoria Dan Andrews, who was the greatest proponent of the vaccine and of its mandatory use, has resigned – though at the time of writing the vaccine has not been mentioned as the reason for his resignation.

(Paula Jardine reported in these pages in December 2021 on this regulatory sleight of hand in granting vaccine Emergency Use Authorisations for what were gene therapies.)

All this data, which is slowly breaking through into the public domain, comes hard on the heels of the latest findings that booster vaccines actually increase the chance of getting infected by 3.6 times.

This is according to an in-depth study published by the Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest health care organisations in the world, who monitored their staff as well as patients.

It gets worse. Supporters of this technology have claimed that it can be adapted to chase new variants. But it can’t.

The results of bivalent vaccines (with components against at least two variants) are seeing the same result.

Authors of the Cleveland study say that ‘there is not a single study that has shown that the Covid-19 bivalent vaccine protects against severe disease or death caused by the XBB lineages of the Omicron variant.

At least one prior study has failed to find a protective effect of the bivalent vaccine against the XBB lineages of SARS-CoV-2.’

In one study, all bivalent-vaccinated mice which were challenged with Covid became ill.

This was predicted by many of us as the SARS viruses are subject to immunological imprinting: that is, once they have seen a vaccine they will make the same response to any close variant (this is also known as ‘antigenic sin‘) making further vaccines not only useless but more dangerous as they induce antibodies that enhance infection (ADE antibodies), not cross reactivity as has been claimed by the manufacturers.

This is not the end of the issues with the mRNA ‘vaccines’. Several immunology studies have shown that the boosters induce an antibody switch from neutralising subtypes to tolerising subtypes as well as inducing significant T cell suppression, all of which will encourage new infections and suppress the immune response to cancer.

At the end of last year I reported that I was seeing melanoma patients who had been stable for years relapse after their first booster (their third injection). I was told it was merely a coincidence and to keep quiet about it, but it became impossible to do so.

The number of my patients affected has been rising ever since. I saw two more cases of cancer relapse post booster vaccination in my patients just this last week.

Other oncologists have contacted me from all over the world including from Australia and the US. The consensus is that it is no longer confined to melanoma but that increased incidence of lymphomas, leukaemias and kidney cancers is being seen after booster injections.

Additionally my colorectal cancer colleagues report an epidemic of explosive cancers (those presenting with multiple metastatic spread in the liver and elsewhere).

All these cancers are occurring (with very few exceptions) in patients who have been forced to have a Covid booster whether they were keen or not, for many so they could travel.

So why are these cancers occurring?

T cell suppression was my first likely explanation given that immunotherapy is so effective in these cancers. However we must also now consider DNA plasmid and SV40 integration in promoting cancer development, a feature made even more concerning by reports that mRNA spike protein binds p53 and other cancer suppressor genes.

It is very clear and very frightening that these vaccines have several elements to cause a perfect storm in cancer development in those patients lucky enough to have avoided heart attacks, clots, strokes, autoimmune diseases and other common adverse reactions to the Covid vaccines.

To advise booster vaccines, as is the current case, is no more and no less than medical incompetence; to continue to do so with the above information is medical negligence which can carry a custodial sentence.

No ifs or buts any longer. All mRNA vaccines must be halted and banned now

Angus Dalgleish

Angus Dalgleish is an expert in immunology and Professor of Oncology at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London.

*********

Video: “Secret” Pfizer Report…

Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky on the “Secret” Pfizer Report Puts Forth a Strategy and Legal Procedure to Confront Big Pharma with a view to Withdrawing the Covid-19 Vaccine Worldwide..https://odysee.com/$/embed/chossudovsky1605202/ef1e9663552d0d27af7c29f18a6b67f6b42d55f8?r=6TjYesarycqSsuwHsqysS9brM6KNrLDX

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was launched in the US on the 14th of December after the granting of Emergency Use Authorization on December 11, 2020.

In a twisted irony, the data revealed in this “insider report” refutes the official vaccine narrative peddled by the governments and the WHO. It also confirms the analysis of numerous medical doctors and scientists who have revealed the devastating consequences of the mRNA “vaccine”.

USA Coronavirus vaccine. Covid-19 vaccination, flu prevention, immunization concept. Vial dose and medical syringe, US of America flag background. 3d illustration

What is contained in Pfizer’s “confidential” report is detailed evidence on the impacts of the “vaccine” on mortality and morbidity. This data which emanates from the “Horse’s Mouth” can now be used to confront as well formulate legal procedures against Big Pharma, the governments, the WHO and the media.

In a Court of Law, the evidence contained in this Big Pharma confidential report (coupled with the data on deaths and adverse events compiled by the national authorities in the EU, UK and US) is irrefutable: because it is their data and their estimates and not ours.

Bear in mind: it’s data which is based on reported and recorded cases, which constitute a small percentage of the actual number of vaccine related deaths and adverse events.

This is a de facto Mea Culpa on the part of Pfizer. #Yes it is a Killer Vaccine

Pfizer was fully aware that the mRNA vaccine which it is marketing Worldwide would result in a wave of mortality and morbidity. This is tantamount to a crime against humanity on the part of Big Pharma.

Pfizer knew from the outset that it was a killer vaccine.

It is also a Mea Culpa and Treason on the part of corrupt national governments Worldwide which are being threatened and bribed by Big Pharma.

No attempt has been made by the governments to call for the withdrawal of the killer vaccine.

People are told that the vaccine is intended to save lives.

Click here to read the secret 2021 Pfizer report.

Shock History of pro-nazi, Anti Worker Crimes by Irish Cops, who now to go on Strike

COPS, COMMISSIONER, REPRESSION

Masked Gardaí working with masked private thugs in carrying out an eviction in Dublin 2018. (Photo sourced: Internet)

from thefreeonline on October 5, 2023 by Diarmuid Breatnach at Rebel Breeze

History, song, revolutionary politics, creative writing (Reading time main text: 9 mins.)

Currently the Garda Representative Association is in a public struggle with the body’s most senior officer and nearly 99% in a high-participation poll of GRA members voted as having no confidence in Drew Harris, the Commissioner.¹

The real issue for the GRA (Garda Representative Association) is that they enjoyed the rosters adopted by the Garda Síochána during the Covid pandemic and don’t want to abandon them. Of course not.

Four days off after four days on shift must be nice and would we all had that.

But for that, the Gardaí would be required to work 12-hour shifts on their four days on and they are not complaining about that all – they are clamouring to do it. The workers’ movement fought hard for the 8-hours day and in in 1886 Anarchists in Chicago were martyred in that struggle.²

And in that struggle, as is usually the case, the police defended the established capitalist authority and attacked the workers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

Not so long ago in the West, 12-hours was a usual shift for a worker though for six days (“seventy hours was his weekly chore”).³ There is a well-known close association of fatigue with harmful incidents (as remarked upon by James Connolly⁴) — and also with shoddy work.

Most Gardaí working 12-hour shifts will adapt themselves to the long hours by taking care to stretch themselves as little as possible but always being available for short energetic work, i.e evictions, intimidating industrial pickets, batoning protest marches and conducting raids.⁵

Minister McEntee & Commissioner Drew Harris speaking recently (Photo cred: *Niall Carson/ PA*)

Justice Minister Helen McEntee says that she will not interfere in the dispute though at the same time expressed support for Harris and mildly criticised the threatened strike action by the GRA. Naturally the ruling class does not want to alienate their first line of physical defence.

But Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty last Thursday attacked the Government and Fine Gael in particular over what he called a “hands off” approach to the dispute by the Justice Minister. According to SF the Gardaí are a service valued and needed by communities.

This benevolent SF attitude to the Gardaí even extends to “specialist groups”.

Doherty and his party leaders now choose to forget that Irish Republicans, including thousands of their own supporters when it was a Republican party, have been spied upon, harassed, threatened, raided, beaten up, framed and perjured against in order to see them jailed.

Sinn Féin’s attitude to the Gardaí is a clear illustration of its change from revolutionary opposition to accommodation with the Gombeen capitalist system — and when in government they will use the Gardaí against any resistance to the system as currently they are using the PSNI.

GARDAI – A LONG REACTIONARY HISTORY

The Gardaí, as the first line of physical defence of the Irish Gombeen class has a long anti-working class, anti-Republican and anti-Left history. The intelligence branch CID worked with the National (sic) Army in identifying Republicans to kidnap, torture and murder.⁶

ANTI-REPUBLICAN

After the defeat of the Irish Republican Movement by the State forces armed and equipped by British imperialism, the Irish neo-colonial state used the Gardaí to harass Republicans.

Eoin O’Duffy, the second Garda Commissioner (1922-1933) of the Irish State, hounded Irish Republicans and socialists during the Civil War and after, one of the causes of political emigration from Ireland and in 1932 (still in his post) founded the Irish fascist Blueshirt organisation.⁷

*Eoin O’Duffy reviewing his fascist “Blueshirts” in the 1930s – he founded them while still the second Garda Commissioner of the Irish State (1922-1933).* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

O’Duffy and his Blueshirts attempted to prepare a coup against the De Valera

government of Fianna Fáil and after partial suppression by the government, went on to join another two reactionary political organisations to form the Fine Gael Party in 1933.⁸

Ned Broy, appointed third Garda Commissioner (1933-1938) created the Special Branch⁹ (nicknamed “Broy’s Harriers”¹⁰ from a Bray dog hunting pack) to repress the fascist movement. However, he filled the unit with ex-military who had been anti-Republican during the Civil War.

Subsequently, Broy’s Harriers also carried out repression against the Republican movement opposed to De Valera and Fianna Fáil.

In the long line of Garda Commissioners that followed, all have presided over repression of the Irish Republican and Left movements, as well as against Travellers and LGBT¹¹ people and even in persecution of people providing contraception prevention.

Some have resigned or retired in controversy: Patrick McLaughlin (1978-1983), retired in the wire-tapping scandal and Patrick Callinan (2010-2014`), over the phone-tapping GSOC and penalty points corruption scandal.History, song, revolutionary politics, creative writing

Noirin O’Sullivan (2014-’17) during the breath-testing corruption and persecution of Garda whistleblower controversy, resigned the post and disturbingly, walked into a job as Director of Strategic Partnerships for Europe at the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Then Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan speaks privately to then Deputy Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan; she succeed him when he resigned in controversy, herself resigning in a separate controversy not long afterwards (Photo cred: *Eamonn Farrell in The Journal*)

Republican prisoner solidarity pickets are frequently harassed and subject to attempted intimidation and individual activists are followed, stopped and questioned etc.

The no-jury political Special Criminal Court regularly jails Republicans on charges of “membership of an illegal organisation”, sending people to jail largely on the word of a Garda officer at the rank of Superintendent and above, who never reveal their alleged sources.

In 1976, the Irish State tried to smash the Irish Republican Socialist Party by pinning the Sallins Mail Train Robbery on them, though they knew the robbery wasn’t theirs. Forty homes were raided and false confessions beaten out of victims by the special Garda “Heavy Gang” unit.¹²

Three innocent activists were sentenced to 12 years in jail as a result and some of the special unit went on to frame others with false confessions also, including Joanna Hayes and family in the “Kerry Babies” case, as outlined in the Crimes and Confessions RTÉ series.

The last time the Gardai took unofficial industrial action by phoning in ‘sick’ was during the “blue flu” of 1998, when however their Special Branch remained very active indeed.

Foiling an attempted robbery by a Real IRA unit, the Special Branch Gardaí shot and killed Volunteer Ronan McLoughlin in the back while he was driving away from them.

Despite the victim posing no threat to anyone when he was killed, the Gardaí were judged innocent.¹³

ANTI-PROGRESSIVE, ANTI-WORKING CLASS

The long-overdue second inquest into the fatalities of the 1981 Stardust Fire is underway as this piece is being written and in 1983, Garda Special Branch raided the launch of Christy Moore’s LP vinyl LP An Ordinary Man to seize the record after Stardust owners objected to a song in it.¹⁴

Over the years of the State the Gardaí have attacked protests and demonstrations, including with particular infamy those of the 1981 Hunger Strikes solidarity march¹⁵ and Regain the Streets in 2002¹⁶ in Dublin and the Corrib Pipeline protests¹⁷ against British Petroleum in Mayo.

Gardaí also harassed and assaulted some of the since-famousDunne’s Stores anti-apartheid strikers and again the more recent Debenhams sacked workers’ pickets.¹⁸

Reportage photo of Garda baton charging National H Blocks Committee protest,… 18 Jul 1981

The Gardaí have on numerous occasions displayed their tolerance of fascists, even to the extent of tolerating abuse from them and flagrant violation of Covid19 regulations.¹⁹ Conversely Gardaí have threatened and attacked antifascist counter demonstrators on many occasions.

Also from todays Debenhams protest, with permission from the worker involved, police harassment of workers fighting for their rights.#Debenhams #Solidarity @MandateTU @bridsmithTD @KittyHollandIT pic.twitter.com/OKKpqOq5eu
— Cllr. Tina MacVeigh PBP 🇵🇸 (@TinaMacVeigh) May 15, 2020

In February 2016 a mass mobilisation of anti-fascists and anti-racists prevented the fascist islamophobic organisation from launching itself in Dublin. Gardaí attacked the antifascists and batoned an RTÉ cameraman in the face.

*Gardaí threatening antifascists after the latter had been attacked by armed fascists on Custom House Quay and Gardaí had then attacked the antifascists, pushing and shoving them on to Butt Bridge.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

On a number of occasions outside the GPO, Gardaí witnessed fascist assaults on opponents without even taking names of perpetrators but on 22^nd August 2020 they went much further in showing their true colours as armed fascist thugs attacked a counter protest on Custom House Quay.

The Gardaí briefly separated the combatants and then the Public Order Unit attacked the unarmed antifascists, threatening them with raised batons and pushing and shoving them away on to Butt Bridge. Later they lied to the media, pretending that no serious violence had occurred.²⁰

Three weeks later, on 12^thSeptember, an LGBT activist and a couple of friends were attacked while observing a rally of the fascist National Party when they were mobbed, threatened and shoved but one was struck on the head with a wooden club which had a Tricolour wrapped around it.

The Gardaí again lied to the media and said there had been no violent incidents. However video of the attack and of a Garda confronting the victim with blood streaming from her head and waving her away, circulated widely and the Gardaí had to change their story.

*Ms Izzy Kamikaze being pushed by Gardaí down Kildare Street after being struck on the head with a club by a fascist* (Photo sourced: *Internet* )

It took the victim to swear out a formal complaint and a month’s delay before the specific wooden club assailant was charged. Last year he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years prison.²¹

In the face of criticisms about their failure to prevent random violent assaults in Dublin’s city centre this year, the Gardaí claimed that they did not have enough personnel to prevent them. However it seems they can always find huge numbers to repress people’s resistance.

Early in June 2022, 100 Gardaí, including an armed unit and a helicopter, took part in the eviction of two activists of the Revolutionary Housing League, who had taken over for the homeless a large empty property on Eden Quay, Dublin. (That building remains empty at the time of writing).²²

*Garda vehicles in their eviction operation against a building occupied by the Revolutionary Housing League in Berkely Road 11 July this year* (Source: *RHL*)

In early July this year, a similarly large number of Gardaí with a helicopter in attendance blocked two ends of Berkely Road in Dublin in order to evict four RHA activists holding a three-storey empty building in which they had recently housed some homeless people.²³

Gardaí have acted against a number of housing campaign actions, in one documented case sending an armed response unit.While acting against housing activists, they have at the same time permitted illegal evictions without intervening (except against protesting housing activists).²⁴

On yet others, masked Gardaí have colluded with masked thugs to evict housing activists.²⁵

*Masked Gardaí working with masked private thugs in carrying out an eviction in Dublin 2018.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Although Gardaí were nearly invisible on the huge anti-extra-water-tax demonstrations, they were present and active on many of the smaller and more local anti-water-privatisation protests opposing the water meter installations for Denis O’Brien’s Uisce Éireann, assaulting and arresting people.

During the long decades of church sexual predation and other abuse by members of (mostly) Catholic Church institutions, complaints to the Gardaí were routinely ignored. Indeed, the Gardaí often seized escaped victims in order to return them to the institutions.²⁶

It is old news that the Gardaí have abused their power against members of the public but less known is that members have done so for sexual advantage or in the course of their personal domestic relationships. Of course this is not surprising since abuse of power reaches everywhere.²⁷

Terence Whitlock’s²⁸ relatives and their supporters are not the only ones accusing the Gardaí of having killed someone in their custody and Vicky Conway (recently deceased) quoted the figure of an average of 15 deaths around Garda custody from 2017 to 2021.²⁹

Corruption in the Gardaí has come to light a number of times, including most recently the false reporting of drink-driving checks and the failure to charge a number of people who were actually found to be driving “under the influence”.

In the course of the above a number of whistleblowers within the Gardaí were intimidated, harassed and in one case an attempt was made to frame a prominent one for abuse of a child.³⁰

CURRENT STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE GRA AND THE COMMISSIONER

Irish Republicans have long held a particular enmity towards Drew Harris, given his previous employment as Assistant Commissioner of the colonial gendarmerie in the Six Counties.³¹ They regularly refer to him as of MI5, the British Intelligence department operating in the UK.

This is understandable and, in fact, it is less natural than that other sections of the Irish polity seem to have had no issue with Harris’ provenance. But in fact, the State’s own senior Gardaí have long been in service, and not always indirectly, to British imperialism, witness Ned Garvey.³²

*Former Garda Commisioner Edmund Garvey outside the Four Courts 11/10/1978.* (Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection). (*Photo by Independent News and Media/Getty Images*)

The revolutionary Left, socialist republican or just socialist, have no reason to side with the Garda Representative Association in their campaign for a different roster or against Drew Harris. Nor of course do we owe Harris any support either.

Unlike Sinn Féin, our position should be opposition to all of the State’s repressive institutions.

Chief among those institutions and regularly confronting us in repression or exercising its power against working class communities is the Gardaí Síochána, with its long anti-working class, anti-democratic, anti-Republican and anti-Socialist reactionary history.

End.

rebelbreeze

In Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, irish history, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Workers’ Struggles

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2023/09/13/huge-majority-of-rank-and-file-gardai-vote-no-confidence-in-garda-commissioner/

2And in that struggle, as is usually the case, the police defended the established capitalist authority and attacked the workers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

3The Larkin Ballad about the 1913 Lockout.

4Competent investigators, for instance, have found that the greatest number of accidents occur at two specific periods of the working day – viz., in the early morning and just before stopping work at evening. In the early morning when the worker is still drowsy from being aroused too early from his slumbers, and has not had time to settle down properly to his routine of watchfulness and alertness, or, as the homely saying has it, “whilst the sleep is still in his bones”, the toll of accidents is always a heavy one.

After 9 a.m. they become less frequent and continue so until an hour after dinner. Then they commence again and go on increasing in frequency as the workers get tired and exhausted, until they rise to the highest number in the hour or half-hour immediately before ceasing work. How often do we hear the exclamation apropos of some accident involving the death of a worker: “He had only just started”, or “he had only ten minutes to go before stopping for the day”? And yet the significance of the fact is lost on most.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1915/rcoi/index.htm (Chapter V – Belfast and its Problems)

5Especially on Irish Republican homes

6Their centre of operations during the Civil War and for some time afterwards was Oriel House, in Dublin.

7In 1936 the Blueshirts also recruited volunteers for Franco’s fascist-military coup against the elected Popular Front government in Spain.

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Gael#:~:text=Fine%20Gael%20was%20founded%20on,the%20legacy%20of%20Michael%20Collins.

9Now known as the Special Detective Unit; however the “Special Branch” name had a history in Britain, where Scotland Yard formed its Special Irish Branch in 1833 to spy on the Fenian movement among the huge Irish diaspora in the cities of Victorian Britain – and several of its members were Irish. Police services in a number of British present and ex-colonies have also carried on the “Special Branch” name, as far apart as the Six Counties colony and the British Bahamas.

10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_Broy

11The latter until homosexuality was de-criminalised.

12 https://sallinsinquirynow.ie/

13And McLoughlin’s inquest was delayed for decades.

14 The LP included Moore’s They Never Came Home which alleged that fire exits were chained shut, a matter with which the current inquest is dealing and about which I do not wish to say more at this point. The following account discussing the banning does not mention the Branch raid but I know of it from people who were present: https://theblackpoolsentinel.com/2021/01/11/christy-moore-and-the-stardust-tragedy/

15The marchers were frustrated that they were being prevented from even reaching the British Embassy in Merrion Road, attempted to push through and a battle ensued. Many were injured on both sides but the police baton-charged the whole crowd and even threatened journalists, though most subsequent media reports were either supportive of the Gardaí or blaming both sides; this brief report and photo being the exception: https://www.reportdigital.co.uk/reportage-photo-garda-baton-charging-national-h-blocks-committee-protest—18-jul-image00138214.html

16 https://www.rte.ie/archives/category/society/2017/0425/870082-reclaim-the-streets-protest/

17 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/shell-pipeline-protests-county-mayo
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30317773.html

18Indeed in one afternoon, uniformed Gardaí hassled the Dunne Stores picketers in Henry Street under Covid19 pandemic regulations, although all were masked and maintaining social distancing, while around the corner the far-Right were demonstrating mask-less and packed together, without the least interference from the Gardaí. A 100 yards or so down the road, the plain-clothes Special Branch (SDU), the political police, were harassing an anti-internment and political prisoner solidarity picket.

19Occasionally Garda patience snapped and one can see the incredulity in the reaction of the Far-Rightists on those occasions, as they had become so used to doing nearly anything they wanted.

20 https://rebelbreeze.com/2020/08/31/there-will-be-another-day/

21 https://the-beacon.ie/2021/06/21/national-party-member-pleads-guilty-to-assault-on-lgbtqia-activist-izzy-kamikaze/

22 https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/07/14/helicopter-and-massive-gardai-numbers-for-what/

23 https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/four-arrested-after-building-occupied-27305837

24 https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/watchdog-raises-concerns-over-garda-conduct-at-eviction

25 https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/garda-chief-under-pressure-after-15145154

26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garda_whistleblower_scandal

27 https://www.newstalk.com/news/domestic-and-sexual-violent-complaints-against-gardai-on-the-rise-gsoc-1473416#:~

28 https://rebelbreeze.com/2023/08/26/protesting-death-of-youth-at-hands-of-garda/

29 https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2022/07/15/at-least-228-fatalities-in-or-following-garda-custody-over-past-15-years-figures-show/

30 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30799234.html

31Previously the Royal Ulster Constabulary (and RIC before that), the PSNI is the armed colonial (and sectarian) police force of the UK State.

32Ned Garvey was ‘outed’ as a British Intelligence ‘asset’ (code name ‘Badger’) by disaffected MI6 handler Fred Holroyd. Garvey denied he was an agent for the British but the Barron Report found that that Holroyd had visited Garvey in his office in 1975 and that he had not made his superiors aware of this. The incoming FF government in 1978 sacked Garvey as having no confidence in him but as a result of not following disciplinary procedures Garvey was able to sue the State and retain his pension. While Garvey was Assistant to Patrick Malone, Garda Commissioner during the British Intelligence/ Loyalist Dublin and Monaghan Bombing in 1974 bomb remains were sent to the Six Counties for forensic analysis. No-one was ever even arrested for the bombing, never mind convicted and the widely-suspected British proxy Glennane Gang went on to murder many more, mostly civilians (see Cadwaller, Lethal Allies).

SOURCES

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2023/09/13/huge-majority-of-rank-and-file-gardai-vote-no-confidence-in-garda-commissioner/#:~

Helen McEntee and GRA: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mcentee-will-not-direct-gardai-on-when-to-work-amid-roster-dispute-1533439.html

Sinn Féin want McEntee proactive on Garda dispute: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/sinn-fein-condemns-governments-hands-off-approach-on-policing-1532379.html

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/six-gardai-suspended-from-the-force-for-over-four-years-1533424.html

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-history/garda-commissioners-since-1922/