Workers Solidarity Movement

Raked over in newspapers since the fifth and final series made its way on to TnaG, it's hard to write anything new about the Wire. It's a portrait of America through Baltimore and the cop show vehicle; of failing school systems and crumbling communities, where drugs gangs and cops act in similar flurries of selfish brutality.

“The police are not concerned about protecting me or any of the working class, because they are put here by the ruling class to protect the interests of the rich from the poor. To enforce their laws that keep together their system, that keeps them at the top and the majority at the bottom”.

Over 200 people packed into the Royal Dublin Hotel on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in early December for a public meeting on the topic ‘Democracy and Policing: How accountable are the Gardaí to the Irish people?’

CopWatch was formed to combat police brutality against oppressed groups. By documenting and exposing incidences of police misconduct and brutality they hope to foster a culture of resistance to state justice among working class people. This interview with a member of Berkeley CopWatch looks at some of their current activities as well as the broader political context for their work.

For the past eight years the people of Rossport in North West Mayo have been struggling against an at- tempt by Shell and other companies to build a dangerous and destructive gas processing terminal near to their homes and their community. This development would benefit no-one but wealthy shareholders as the Irish Government handed over the extraction rights to the oil companies in the 1980s and 1990s.

Terence Wheelock’s death is by no means extraordinary, in that his death was one twenty two deaths reported in Garda Custody since 1997. Of these figures, a majority of those who died are under the age of thirty, and, in the case of Brian Rossiter, the victim was just fourteen years old.

Recent arrests of protestors, both north and south of the border, has shown that political policing is alive and well within our society. 

There was no surprise when Sinn Fein voted to support the PSNI, the republican leadership does not usually put anything to a vote unless they are already pretty sure of the result. This does not mean they found it easy, it was a bitter pill for them to swallow. The IRA used to shoot cops and the cops used to shoot them. Now they have to ask their supporters to assist the PSNI, even join them.

To people living in the North Inner City, the recent revelations at the Dublin City coroner’s court at the inquest into the death of young Terence Wheelock will not come as a surprise. Terence went into a coma from which he never recovered, after sustaining injuries in Store Street Garda station. One witness to his arrest said the Gardai ‘whacked Terence’s head off the side of the van and twisted his broken arm behind his back’.

On Sunday Sinn Fein voted to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland at their extraordinary ard fheis which was attended by approximately 1,000 delegates. The vote, which was recorded by a show of hands, came after 6 hours of debate and a series of amendments which Sinn Fein claim will “enhance the proposal”. The build-up to the ard fheis saw an unprecedented amount of positive press for Sinn Fein with the media calling today’s event a “historical moment” and suggesting that the party has finally matured beyond it’s revolutionary past. A Sunday Business post poll stated that 56% of people questioned would be more likely to vote for the party if they support the PSNI.