Two more convicted of public order offences from Mayday 2004; STILL no anarchist support

by pc Mon Jan 17, 2005 18:11

someone pointed out to me (in relation to actions at shannon )

that 70 irish lawyers put out public statements against the war last year.... when it was popular

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2003/03/06/story656274409.asp

so out of these 70 lawyers how many have provided their servces to the actions putting the use of shannon on trial???

ps do you mean http://www.flac.ie/

by R. Isible Fri Jan 14, 2005 23:19

QUOTE: I can count on the thumbs of one toe the support I've gotten from the DGN and RTS, or the times I've seen one of you in court.

Did DGN or RTS refuse to support you?

Were you unaware of how to get in touch with DGN or RTS?

If the answer to either of the above is true then you have a point, otherwise it seems like you've got other motives.

by mike Fri Jan 14, 2005 19:01

did No6 get support from other organisations?

what other groups apart anarchist leaning groups were at his trials?

by Davy Carlin Fri Jan 14, 2005 16:28 carlindavid at hotmail dot com

Could you e- mail me a leaflet please at attached address

by Joe Fri Jan 14, 2005 15:33

Yeah searching his past posts is pretty funny, how about this advice from No 6 "Any chance of you getting your finger out and instead of offering constructive advice about whatever we need to do, actually FUCKING doing it.

"I think you're a bullshiter who mistakes spouting off on indymedia with actually doing something achievable and workable.

"Get your thumb out stop posting this turgid crap and start DOING something.

"All mouth no trousers"
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=63749

I guess consistencty is the hobgoblin of little minds and all that?

by Ploughshares Defence Fri Jan 14, 2005 14:55

As the dust settles, the PIt Stop Ploughshares are still looking for pre-trial and trial solidarity. Urgently- we need you to promote (email or call for leaflets and posters!) and drag along whoever you can to .......

*a Speaking Gig with celebrated U.S. independant media journalist Amy Goodman http://www.democracynow.org
Saturday January 29th. 8 pm ATGWU Hall, 55 Middle Abbey St.
Entry by donation to Ploughshares Defence Fund

* a Music Gig celebrating the 2nd. anniversary of our disarmament action at Shannon Airport, Thursday Feb 3rd.Mother Redcaps 8pm-late *Prison Love *Rossa & Ronan & other friends from Kila *Donal O'Kelly * Paul O'Toole *Caomhe Butterly
Entry 5euro poor/ 10 euro rich and donations to Ploughshares Defence Fund gratefully accepted on the night.

Will post more background on these events and other ways folks can express their solidarity with their defendants and oppositon to Irish comlicity in this war

. I know it feels like we've been around forever..but we hope to be out of your way after our acquittal in mid-March. So if folks can prioritise this trial for the next 6 or 7 weeks that would be great. Hopefully more resistance will come out of it...lots of solid people coming to the trial from the U.S. & Europe so it should be productive time for the anti-war movement outside the court.

by notanumber Fri Jan 14, 2005 14:43

To make it easier to find, here is the exact url:

by Puzzle Palace Fri Jan 14, 2005 14:27

"Mary must take responsibility for her actions, she knew full well the state would object to her actions and she most likely would face prison. She must accept the consequences of her decision."

by Alexander Rush Fri Jan 14, 2005 13:37

After riling, raving and ranting for months against the SP, then moving on the ISN, it must have been the turn of the anarchists to feel the wrath of the cess pool that is UCD Labour.
NO. 6, Trotwatch, Magneto, Tom Luby - what's the difference.

Labour Left = Spineless swines & Cemented Minds

by Joe Fri Jan 14, 2005 11:59

Yeah I realised on the way home from work last night that No6 was a Labour Party member. I'd spotted the political axe grinding (telling deliberate lies is always a give away, as is not owning up when they are pointed out). While wanting to keep himself anonymous in relation to a court case is legitimate there was nothing to stop him including a 'Labour Party personal capacity' tag with his posting so others would have taken his comments in that light. Mind you I don't think there is a single Labour Party poster on indymedia that has shown this level of honesty. If this is the left of the party it tells you a little about what to expect when they are in power.

Knowing the ideology behind the poster means that his demands for professional representation, doing stuff regardless of the defendants wishes and faith in the legal system all fall into context. I had initally thought he was a confused libertarian who hadn't thought things through fully. Its good to know he's somebody who is politically hostile to the basic principles DGN stands for.

The thread has served to clarify a lot of stuff and re-opened a discussion that needs to be ongoing. Despite his lies no6 has fulfilled a useful purpose in doing this. I think JW is going to post a detailed list of what has been done in terms of Mayday 2004 defendant support which will make this thread quite a useful place to refer people to in the future.

by No 6 Fri Jan 14, 2005 01:00

the phrase "too little too late" comes to mind, the behaviour of the DGN and it's lack of support and the offense it's policy has garnered among those facing chargers has been documented over the past years, in comments raised by a variety of people upset with the DNG has appeared on this site and the reactionary nature of those facing charges is due to the shockingly consistently poor performance of the DGN and their inability to react to critiicism.

And hey phuq if you half of whart you preach you'd have a clue that the proceding won't require witnesses, so you're clueless, and need to go away,

I'm also impressed how easily anyone who dares raise a valid critiicism of the failings of a group that use indymedia can get accused of trolling. I'm beginning to think RP has a point.

by Michael Thu Jan 13, 2005 23:31

No 6, you're getting dangerously close to trolling at this stage. Indeed, chances are you've been trolling all along just to watch the lefties get in a huff (it worked, some have). Very funny. Joke's on us. You've had your fun, now get lost.

by Phuq Hedd Thu Jan 13, 2005 22:17

OK #6, I take it that you're asking for a massive presence of political activists at your next court date? Yeah? Otherwise what are you talking about. Post details of your next hearing or whatever you want support on to the DGN mailing list.

by No 6 Thu Jan 13, 2005 20:50

And fergal thank you for the honesty.

What I'm really annoyed about is how two faced members of the DGN can be, saying how lessons need to be learnt, but then lunge into and attack while at the same time attacking the posters. And then saying that you lack the resources to adequately help. Well you know what face up to the consequences of your actions. You wanted to have the protest you need to accept the consequences and help. But that seems beyond you.

oh and chekov

"the anarchist community fall back onto a form of limited liability used by corporations"

reveal that he has an ideological axe to grind with anarchists. In grinding that axe virtually every word that squirms its way from his fingers is a straightforward and offensive lie."

Sorry chekov I call it like I see it, when things go wrong the anarchist community here use the "lack of leadership of a network means we have no leaders" to translation you can when things go wrong you can avoid individual responsibility, no one involved in the organisation of the mayday rts has made their idenity known, cowardice pure and simple.

by No 6 Thu Jan 13, 2005 20:40

starts chekov ole buddy ole pal Your blood boils does it?

DOES IT?

I've spent two years facing charges, testified againist gardai and no am awaiting the result of my civil case (so you'll pardon my anonimty) to get some kind of compensation for all the grief and injury.

I can count on the thumbs of one toe the support I've gotten from the DGN and RTS, or the times I've seen one of you in court.

So you'll pardon me if I find your sanctemonious self righteous outrage just fucking laughable.

My opinion is based on weeks of court (which thank you very much means I've had plenty of time to study our legal system., first hand, in the witness box.

You claim utter igorance of the legal system, but then weigh in with your opinion. Did you try to engage or did you just skult in the background chekov, what really did you do in court?

In the cases againist the gardai in rts their legal council did try to weigh in the politics and tried to pick apart the relationship between rts and GR. did you know that? Do you not think a representive from RTS could have helped the prosceution and demostrate how poorly researched the case was, instead it was up to "political naive" states witnesses who had to answer questions re the genoa g 8 summit. Or was it polticial smart for you not to hang around for that one?

I don't know if having Dr Lawerence Cox speaking for the defence of those accused on Mayday 2004 but y'know what it would have been nice to know someone from the grassroots network would have been willing to. But you didn't give them that option, you could have but didn't bother even checking.


"Well for all of your snide criticism of the 'badly-written' statement about the Corcoran trial, you are still talking out of your ass. This statement was furiously disagreed with by one of the defendants in the RTS trial and caused us many problems, not least myself as the defendant in question was my brother and he was extremely pissed off at RTS using the trial to make 'political' points when he was the one who had been accused."

Nice kind of admit that the corcoran statement hurt and pissed people off, but then through your brother to the wolves on here, to supplicate me, truth be told, more often than not DGN looks like it wants to score some points, than really offer support to those who need it.

" using the trial to make 'political' points when he was the one who had been accused."

DId you offer that argument to Corcoran he was on trial and you tried to score points off it?

"A week after Mayday the Pheonix ran a profile of me without my agreement or fore-knowledge. I only learned of it when people who had been contacted by their researchers tipped me off. The article was motivated more by the fact that my family history gave the journalist a good angle for a story than by anything that I had done over mayday."

And your pompous SBP interview was what?

by Chekov - 1 of DGN Thu Jan 13, 2005 17:58

I have long found the whole thread of arguments about prisoner support for RTS 2002 and Mayday 2004 a bit depressing. While I am quite familiar with the problems of organising this sort of work in network organisations and feel that is a serious issue and problem that we need to face up to, I really don't think that many of the criticisms that have been voiced have appreciated the problems. None as far as I know have even attempted to offer possible solutions.

I think that much of this springs from a lack of understanding of the limitations on the 'services' that a loose, largely young and inexperienced network of part-timers, virtually all of whom are full-time workers, with essentially no resources like DGN or RTS can provide. There is also a certain amount of naivety regarding the consequences of getting arrested and prosecuted by the state. For almost everybody who got arrested on either of these two demonstrations it was their first contact with the wrong end of the legal system. This experience normally involves a large number of illusions being unceremoniously shattered and is generally traumatic. Once the guards take a case against you, you will suffer regardless of the justice of your case. Well organised support networks can help to minimise this, but for most people the experience will be deeply unpleasant and unanticipated.

Unfortunately, I think that the criticism has only served to heap more pressure on the small number of people who try to do what they can to help out. However, while I think that much of the criticism is genuine and reflects genuine problems, I feel that some of it is driven by malice and is merely intended to demoralise and deflate activists in DGN. I would very surely place the contributions of No 6 in that category. All of his contributions contain statements presented as authoritative facts which I know to be false. I don't know whether this is due to the author foolishly repeating some erroneous gossip as if it were fact, or if he/she/it is engaged in a straightforward mud-flinging exercise. The fact that No 6's contribution contains a thinly-veiled and stunningly stupid accusation of cowardice against me rather inclines me to suspect that the latter is the case.

It is almost impossible to answer such slurs without going into a detailed list of what you have done. I generally detest such demands for justification of people's "activist colours". The toleration of such demands leads to a culture where the tiny proportion of the population who are decent enough to give up their scarce free time to agitate for a better world, are put under tremendous stress to fulfill impossible tasks to escape the burden of guilt. This leads to burnout and drives people away. It is also a conveniently easy way for police to draw out information about activists. So I always try to resist the temptation to rise to the bait. However, No 6's contribution has enraged me to such an extent that I will ignore my (sometimes) better judgement.

To those of you who don't have the foggiest of what I'm talking about, the accusation that has so incensed me is contained in the following passage from No 6's contribution:

"When things went wrong in 2002 and 2004, leadership so forward in the business post and phoenix and on RTE news, in the run up, disappear. Falling behind their organisational structure they allow themselves to ensure no one is in charge no one is responsible."

The references to the business post and the pheonix refer to me, which would be obvious to anybody who has been following this 'debate'. I actually had relatively little involvement in any of the DGN Mayday planning as I decided far in advance to concentrate on indymedia work during the Mayday period. About a week before Mayday I spoke to the SBP about indymedia as a media operation and did a couple of radio interviews on the same topic. At the time indymedia people were run off their feet with media requests and other indymedia people did far more 'media work' than me.

A week after Mayday the Pheonix ran a profile of me without my agreement or fore-knowledge. I only learned of it when people who had been contacted by their researchers tipped me off. The article was motivated more by the fact that my family history gave the journalist a good angle for a story than by anything that I had done over mayday.

On neither occasion could you possibly describe me as being 'so forward'. To casually throw this snide insinuation in alongside the blatant lie about me representing some type of 'leader' of DGN in these interviews is very dishonest indeed. One article had nothing to do with DGN, which wasn't mentioned, the other briefly mentioned it in passing. There was not a single word in either article that could lead anybody to believe that I put myself forward as a DGN leader. You are simply throwing mud.

"Frankly it's my opinion that this is done to avoid legal responisbility, charges such as insightment to riot, which is unfortunate, but again these people will stand up and take responibilty when there are no potential legal grief, but when the shit hits the fan, they scurry. I sympathise; but then it's cold comfort for those facing charges that all the organisers will do to help them is just turn up outside the court with a banner, but will not stand up and defend the idealogy of the protest in court.

It may not do anything, it may be ignored, but this cowering lack of responsibilty allows Gardaí to create a picture of the protests unchallenged in court."

This is the most offensive part of your post as well as being the most ignorant. Your charge that, after being 'so forward' as 'leadership', I and others are "cowering" folk who would 'scurry' rather than 'defend the ideology of the protest in the court' would be laughable if it wasn't so insulting. Now I am very far from being a legal expert but over the last couple of years - since RTS 2002 as it happens - I have probably spent a good two weeks in total in court rooms. The idea that a district court judge would even contemplate admitting such evidence strikes me as extremely improbable. In my experience they rarely let the accused open their mouths, never mind admitting 'political' speeches. The idea that the testimony of a 'self-confessed' anarchist would favourably influence a district court judge in a public order case strikes me as even less likely. The concept that any defendant outside the tribe of political fanatics - and especially their legal counsel - might want such a defence strikes me as inconceivable.

In truth, I would be delighted to contribute to the defence of the vast majority of defendants in our courts. However, I know enough about the legal system to realise that it doesn't quite work like it does on the telly. Stirring speeches and intelectual defences don't really happen, especially in the lower courts. I also know enough to know that your talk of fears over charge for 'insightment [sic] to riot' are complete rubbish. The chances of that happening, regardless of what anybody said, are non-existant.

What infuriates me the most is that you attack me and others as cowards in an anonymous mail to indymedia on the basis of complete ignorance. The people that you are accusing of cowardice are the small number of people who were willing to publicly defend the right to protest around Mayday and got vilified in the media as a result. You do this as an anonymous contributor on indymedia - some example of bravery you are. You criticise us for our cowardice in supporting prisoners, but in doing so you reveal yourself to have a hollywood image of the legal system and you have probably never even visited a district court sitting. I can only see how unrealistic your position is as I have spent some time in courts in the last two years supporting defendants and in meetings about prisoner support.

To deal with some of the other points in No 6's post:

"One of the major bones of contention on both RTS and mayday trials is that the gardaí are given free reign to exageratte and down right lie about the mood and plans for the protests. Theres no rebuttal aside from the accused who can't answer for the entire crowd and is too busy trying to keep his own neck out of prison to defend the behaviour of the crowd. This talk of support is empty the kind of support offered is mere solidarity, when pratical support can and should be given.

DGN organise these protests, they speak to the media have spokepersons, but when the times comes to the court appearances they do not come forward... They should approach solicitors and take an active attitude persuing aid. Some of the GRN network people have spoken on primetime, defending the protests surely they can do the same in court when someone is facing a prison term, working as a rebuttal witness."

Again, I am no legal expert, but you seem to have a hopelessly unrealistic idea of how our justice system works. This type of thing might just be possible and productive with a skilled legal team in a higher court with a jury, but for a judge-only public order charge in a district court with a legal-aid lawyer it is inconceivable. God is a more plausible hypothesis.

"The best that has been mentioned (in the related thread) is having 20 anarchists turn up and the implication that this might "intimidate" a judge, a concept frankly ludricous to anyone who follows the current limerick feuds and the trials."

Actually, as somebody who has spent a bit of time in the courts supporting defendants rather than reading about the limerick feuds in the herald, I think that the support for the defendants in the case of P & J was tremendously succesful. It was not a case of the judge being 'intimidated' but just that the judge realised that she was under some scrutiny for once. If you spend any time in the district courts you will soon learn that most judges are mad and most cases are decided on their whim - they normally just convict for whatever the guards say you did without any other evidence. When there are supporters inside and outside the court the judges have to watch themselves and pay some attention to the law for fear of being embarrassed by media attention or an appeal. From reading the accounts of Killian's trial and from being at that of P & J it seems to me that both cases were similar; the guards provided some inaccurate circumstancial evidence and absolutely no direct evidence of the crime. When the support was there the case was rightly thrown out, when it wasn't, it was business as usual and she just convicted for whatever crime the guards wanted.

"DGN organise these protests, they speak to the media have spokepersons, but when the times comes to the court appearances they do not come forward. The only exception to his is a badly written and crudely put e-mail re the posponment of the Corcoran trial."

Well for all of your snide criticism of the 'badly-written' statement about the Corcoran trial, you are still talking out of your ass. This statement was furiously disagreed with by one of the defendants in the RTS trial and caused us many problems, not least myself as the defendant in question was my brother and he was extremely pissed off at RTS using the trial to make 'political' points when he was the one who had been accused.

Stripping away the layers of ignorance and bile from your contributions, this is the heart of your misunderstanding. It would be extremely poor practice to build a political campaign around court cases where the defendant didn't want it and would leave one open to justifiable charges of cynical hijacking of their plight. In the cases of both the RTS 2002 and the Mayday 2004 trials, the majority of defendants did not want a political campaign. This is quite understandable. Given the existance of some people who are quite happy to hijack cases for sectarian political gain, I would be very reluctant to agree to a political campaign unless I knew and trusted the organisers well. I would be absolutely furious if anybody tried to use a trial of mine for a political campaign without my consent. In these circumstances, you have no choice but to respect the wishes of the defendants.

Beyond a political campaign and without a large chunk of resources or significant legal expertise, there is actually relatively little practical support that can be offered. You can try to help the defendants stay in touch with each other. You can try to make sure that people know when a trial is happening (although some defendants prefer for even this information to be kept private and actively don't want their cases publicised). You can recommend lawyers that have been helpful in the past. You can try to raise funds if the defendant needs money to pay fines or legal fees. You can turn up at the hearings to show physical support. All of these things have been done for defendants in both cases. Naturally this type of support, without a political campaign, isn't going to be something that people hear a lot about and it is extremely limited in how much it can practically help. The bottom line is that, once the state decides to prosecute you, you are going to have an unpleasant and normally drawn-out and bewildering experience, no matter how much of this type of support is organised.

"if the [support] offered isn't open and freely avaliable it's going to be difficult for a defendent to know it's available or more importantly their legal team unfamilar with the style and workings (and I use that term losely) of groups such as these won't know the first thing about it.

... and later ...

And as for the approached bit, part of the bitching about the DGN's response is it's difficult to approach or find you, so it's like saying "but no one looked for us", when you're hiding in the dark wearing camoflauge."

Again, you are talking straight out of your ass. In the immediate aftermath of both RTS and Mayday, virtually every single defendant was contacted and invited to meetings. I believe that another member of DGN who was heavily involved in defendant support post Mayday 2004 will respond later to outline what was done in the aftermath of Mayday 2004. I will give a brief outline of what was done in the case of RTS 2002.

* Within a week of the event a fundraiser for defendants was organised. A defendants' meeting was also organised and we went to great lengths to let all of the people who had been injured and arrested know about this, including phoning any of them whose details we had. We also produced posters and fliers for these meetings which we distributed widely around town. All of this required people to do work - designing and printing posters, distributing them, booking rooms, chasing people up by phone, etc. This was all made far more difficult by the fact that we were operating in an atmosphere of extreme paranoia.

* The meeting attracted over 40 people who had been arrested and/or injured together and we also managed to persuade a sympathetic lawyer to attend. At this meeting I argued strongly for a political campaign, however, it was clear that the defendants, virtually all of whom were politically inexperienced, were not enthusiastic and were much more concerned with organising succesful legal defences. At this meeting we also set up an email list to allow the defendants to stay in touch with each other which sadly never took off due to a lack of participation from defendants. We also made sure to let people know how to get video evidence to be used in their trials.

* We made sure that people turned up to trials whenever we knew about them. I personally attended the courts on five separate occasions to offer some support to defendants and I know of at least a dozen others who also attended the courts. Some of them were there more frequently than I was. Each one of these occasions requires taking a half-day off work as you have no way of knowing at what time the case will be heard so it is quite a drain on your free time and there is only so much that most people can do - most bosses don't take kindly to half days for court support. This type of work is also fairly disempowering and draining as cases are continually deferred - you end up sitting through several hours of a judge mumbling to himself without having a clue what's going on and are then told to come back in a few months for more of the same.

* Over time more of the defendants fell out of touch with us. In hindsight, this was probably inevitable as the cases dragged on over 2 and a half years and many of the predominantly young defendants went away or got worn down and just decided to fight the case quietly. When the defendant doesn't tell you the details of their hearings it is extremely difficult to get details about it - even if you wanted to ignore their wishes and turn up.

* We continued to support defendants and show up at trials when we knew about them and when our presence was wanted for 18 months at least after the events. We have remained in touch with some of the defendants until now. One of the people involved in the support work was in touch with a defendant just before christmas. Over this period there have also been other fundraising work and various other support work such as writing reports on trials etc, which has been carried out by a small number of individuals. The length of time that the cases have dragged on for and the enormous resources available to the state in comparison to us means that this work is very difficult.

It is simply not true in any way to say that no support work was done for RTS 2002 or for Mayday 2004. In fact a decent amount of hard work was done by a dozen people or so for a long time after the events. This work could certainly have been better organised but we were seriously hampered by a lack of resources, a lack of people and a lack of experience. At the time of the first defendant's meeting after RTS I had never been in a courtroom and I was almost as ignorant as No 6 is about the workings of our legal system. None of the RTS people involved had ever been involved in organising such a support campaign before. One of our biggest problems in my view was that we went into the process without any clear understanding of the limited support that an activist network can provide in the courtroom.

There is also the problem that different people within RTS/DGN have different ideas of what we should be trying to do. Some people feel that we should develop legal expertise within the network so that we can give complete legal advice to defendants. I feel that this is ill-advised and would at best amount to us wasting a whole lot of time in order to give dubious advice. I personally would always rely on the advice of a decent lawyer who knows the court system from inside than a well-meaning amateur. I feel that it is only really on the political and organisational front that we can really contribute any meaningful support and this is only possible when the defendants are willing to take the risk of running their cases as political campaigns. The other major lesson that I drew from the experiences of defendant support in the last couple of years is of the need for a level of organisation that can withstand a long drawn out process. This is one area where we should be able to make significant improvements next time with the experience drawn from these trials.

To sum up, I very ,very much resent people making claims that 'nothing was done'. I have spent a significant chunk of my precious free time in the last couple of years doing work on defendant support. This has not only been around the RTS/Mayday cases - I have also been to the courts and on demos on several occasions to support anti-capitalist, anti-war and bin tax defendants. Several other individuals within the anarchist and libertarian movements have done far more and many others have done a similar amount or somewhat less. This work is unglamorous and unrewarding, but I do it because I think it is worthwhile and important. When an anonymous coward pops up on indymedia and attacks myself and the few others who have put work into this area it makes my blood boil. No 6's contributions to this thread are among the most dishonest, malicious and spiteful that I have ever seen on indymedia. Phrases in his contribution such as "the anarchist community fall back onto a form of limited liability used by corporations" reveal that he has an ideological axe to grind with anarchists. In grinding that axe virtually every word that squirms its way from his fingers is a straightforward and offensive lie.

No 6, you are a liar, an ignoramus and a snivelling coward. Little wonder that you remain anonymous when spreading your odious filth.

by Fergal - wsm/dgn Thu Jan 13, 2005 17:42

There is no doubt that the libertarian scene, such as it is, has a lot to learn about creating and maintaining proper legal and prisoner support structures. There are innumerable things we could do better and we have certainly made quite a few mistakes. To learn from these mistakes will require some collective reflection and debate and some of it will be fractious and difficult.

However, the person who posted this article is clearly not interested in encouraging useful debate and is either trying to create bad feeling or is simply ignorant of the facts.Luckily some of the responses are a bit more enlightening and may contribute to improving defendant support in the future.

It seems to me that we (eg those involved in DGN, RTS, support for Thessaloniki prisoners and Shannon defendants) have faced three major obstacles to creating consistently functioning prisoner support.

Firstly, because DGN and RTS are made up of a fairly diverse and fluid coalition of individuals and groups some of who may be interested in one particular issue but may not neccessarily want to get involved in everything that DGN does or every RTS party. This way of organising has lots of advantages but can make it difficult to maintain medium to long term intiatives. This is further complicated by the fact that a lot of people involved haven't worked with each other before or maybe completely new to activist politics. The social centre initiative is a very hopeful sign that we are evolving. The experience of working with each other over time and hopefully a space to conspire, agitate and relax in should make prisoner support networks easier to maintain.

Secondly, we need to improve communication between the various groups and individuals involved in libertarian politics. There has been a lot of misinformation, shit stirring and bad faith over the issue of prisoner support. It would be easier to ignore trolls who only want to undermine our efforts if everything that has been done was clearly documented. Sometimes, it is easy to assume that because a lot of the same people are around at benefits, pickets and courtrooms that we all know what everyone else is up to but perhaps this isn't so. Time, money, worry and care have been put into prisoner support and maybe this should be more actively documented. Happily, this is easy enough to remedy.

Finally, there has been a lot of interest in libertarian politics and events but we need to be more accessible. Most of the organising is falling on the rather narrow shoulders of a fairly small group of people. For prisoner support, and indeed for any projects of any real worth to work we need more people to get involved. Passive consumption is the exact opposite of anarchist self-organisation so we need to create spaces and forms of organisation that allow people to have a role in organising politically. Now, that might be a bit trickier but I'd love to hear some suggestions.

by jack white - .. Thu Jan 13, 2005 15:25

But as someone who was / is involved in the legal support i'd like to point out that we did make contact with allmost everyone who was arrested (one of the people involved in the legal support group was actually arrested and spent the few days in cloverhill alongside everyone else).

Subsequently we invited people to two defendents meetings in the summer, set up an email list in september and are still in contact with people who are up again.

None of these iniatives worked that well however. Speaking personally i don't think that the legal support was as good as it could have been, i don't think anyone does, but i do have a problem with some of the allegations being made here.

I'm back to work in a minute so i'll have to finish here but later today or tomorrow i'm planning to respond to some of the comments on this thread and to write something on what the legal group did do. There's a discussion that needs to be had on how to properly run a legal support group and anyone who wants to do so could definatly learn from a mayday case study, that said i think that a lot of the negative comments here are a fairly transparent attempt at point scoring.

by No 6 Thu Jan 13, 2005 13:55

1. arrestees
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64796

Is shabby report by a bloke who turned up to check on his mate, not a member of DGN.

It later includes a report by two DGN members but I kn ow legal support failed to attend the late night post Mayday 2004

2.http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64800

Is a pretty obtuse document, once again the offer of "legal support" is mentioned, but what support was actually on offer, very little has been said about what support aside from "soldarity" was given or offered by DGN.

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64866

again a pretty piss poor response, a few lines, no real info and no real explaination or proof of any attempt at support.

3. http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64885

Another pompous press release used to gain a few political points and doesn't really offer anything concrete to those facing charges.

4.http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65109

Another report seems just like some poor alone bastard going through the courts again.

5. http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66590

court reporting again, with a couple of digs at the system "man"

6.http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66679


"There were about 20 supporters in Court 50, in the old Richmond Hospital on North Brunswick St. They had staged a protest outside the court beforehand, organised by the Dublin Grassroots Network, with a banner that read: "Don't Criminalise Political Dissent!""

This appears to be the first mention of any real show of support and what is it? Just a bunch of people advertising their organisation (or network) while sticking it to the man. Sweet.

So taking these as evidence of the proactive and can do attitude displayed by the DGN just displays how pathetic the response was if this is all you can show for it.

"Apart from the dishonesty of No6 'no accounts' post which I have dealt with above I really don't see where they are coming from. They seem to imagine that both DGN (and more oddly RTS) are some sort of well established, well funded organisations capable of offering the level of support No6 describes. This is so far from the reality of a tiny group of activists meeting by candlelight in a squat that there is no basis for discussion here. We can all wish that such an organisation existed but it doesn't so we can either stay at home until it magically comes into existence or we can do what we can.'

No I don't but I do find remarkable when the shit does hit the fan these people don't seem interested in taking responsibility for their actions, you called the demos you set up an organisation, so the onus is on you to accept the good (all the pr) with the bad (how 8 months later people are still trundling through the courts.) Yes they had a choice to be there, yes the state has a part to play, but yes so do you, and this lack of responsibility has the air of a teenager skiving off after the party is over but the clean up as yet to begin.

"I think if there had been an approach by any defendant or lawyer to someone involved in DGN asking for someone to testify as to the basis of the demonstration then we'd have done so. Legally I suspect this would have been meaningless which is why no one was ever asked but I've appeared as a defense witness in the past and I'm sure others would do likewise. But the idea that we should have just turned up in court and done so is really really weird."

Thank you very disingenous and missing my point. My point is instead of sitting around in the squat bitching about the man in the weeks afterwards, you should have been making an effort to engage the solicitors, find out the arrenment dates, (any junior report can find that out) and engage with peoples defenses.

And as for the approached bit, part of the bitching about the DGN's response is it's difficult to approach or find you, so it's like saying "but no one looked for us", when you're hiding in the dark wearing camoflauge.

I never said "just turn up in court" I said that as part of the protest you should have been willing to help out get invovled muck in and help with a defense. Then instead of people bitching about the DGN failure to involve themselves and your oh so handy "no one asked us" you'd have maybe been able to offer something more than standing around outside with a banner.......

by Joe Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:54

First off apologies to soundwave, when they wrote "As i pointed out above, it doesnt exist." I presume the 'above' referred to an earlier post they had made (in which they would have used another name) whereas in retrospect they obviously meant the paragraph above.

Apart from the dishonesty of No6 'no accounts' post which I have dealt with above I really don't see where they are coming from. They seem to imagine that both DGN (and more oddly RTS) are some sort of well established, well funded organisations capable of offering the level of support No6 describes. This is so far from the reality of a tiny group of activists meeting by candlelight in a squat that there is no basis for discussion here. We can all wish that such an organisation existed but it doesn't so we can either stay at home until it magically comes into existence or we can do what we can.

I think if there had been an approach by any defendant or lawyer to someone involved in DGN asking for someone to testify as to the basis of the demonstration then we'd have done so. Legally I suspect this would have been meaningless which is why no one was ever asked but I've appeared as a defense witness in the past and I'm sure others would do likewise. But the idea that we should have just turned up in court and done so is really really weird.

I have respect for 'R's point of view because he did actually help out quite significantly. But some of the other contributions really do seem to be a case of people with political axes to grind using this as an excuse to do so.

by Joe Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:26

"If you actually scan through any search term on this site there are NO results which are a DGN or RTS accused report from any member of either group."

This isn't right as a very quick glance at the Mayday archive shows http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?topic=mayday2004 From this

May Day cases adjourned due to judge shortage
by William - DGN Tuesday, Sep 21 2004, 2:20am
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66679

Mayday Court Appearances - the Security Cut
by Dermo - WSM Wednesday, Sep 15 2004, 5:40pm
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66590

Court report on Mayday arrestee
by Dermo Wednesday, May 19 2004, 2:27pm
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65109

District Court's attempt to criminalise protest overturned Laurence Cox, Wednesday, May 5 2004, 8:59pm
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64885

12 people kept in prison by Judge for Mayday public order offences redflaremist, Wednesday, May 5 2004, 1:12p
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64866

Support those arrested on saturday! legal support, Sunday, May 2 2004,
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64800

arrestees backup, Sunday, May 2 2004, 8:18pm
whats happening to the people at cloverhill
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64796

I think this illustrates the level of axe grinding and dishonesty going on here quite well!

by Michael Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:04

No 6, I acknowledged that DGN haven't done enough support for arrestees. I advocated forming affinity groups and support groups with nonviolence workshops before Mayday04 and other actions, as an alternative to relying on a central organising body. Even if the DGN does improve in the area of after action support - there have been some useful suggestions made above, bitching aside - I think it would still be best if people tried to form affinity groups and support groups independently.

Again, I think that we already know what we need to do. I wouldn't rely on DGN for much anything, and especially not for something as important as getting busted, going to court, prison, etc... But that's just me. ;-) Get an affinity group.

by No 6 Thu Jan 13, 2005 03:54

"I'm staggered that you continue to flap your lips yet fail to provide any evidence that what you say is true.

Again how many were arrested, how many sought DGN help, how many were refused?

The clear accusation is that anarchists (according to the person posting as R) failed to support each other.

You and R have failed to make it clear whether you're bitter about some isolated incident that the two of you (ha ha) are involved in or whether there is really a systemic failure.

Until you do, then you remain non credible."

The systematic failure is ver easy to see.

1. The DGN were once again absent at trial, and in fact were so clueless as to be unaware that is was in existance. Saying people can contact us, if you don't make yourself available is like setting up a paramedic service but not telling anyone it exists, and then complaining than people die of heartattacks.

2. If you can find me a postive story on indymedia about the reaction of people accused i'd like you to find it. The DNG and the RTS failed to provide any meaningful level of co-ordination between those accused.

What I can say is in over a dozen RTS and Mayday 2004 cases i can see no evidence of any real support by DGN

Again you ask me to provide evidence I can only provide ancedotal the fact that DNG and RTS can't provide any figures to say who's been aqquited or charged or been supported is a far more telling fact about the level of support recieved.

heres a very simple example;

Search Indymedia for "mayday trials"

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?search_text=Mayday+trials&button=Search+%3E%3E

Or mayday rts

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?search_text=mayday+RTS&button=Search+%3E%3E

If you actually scan through any search term on this site there are NO results which are a DGN or RTS accused report from any member of either group. There are no, I repear no real evidence that DGN or RTS offered any kind of real support offered by DGN to the level of writing a short report of a the outcome of a trial.Po

by Phuq Hedd Thu Jan 13, 2005 03:06

I'm staggered that you continue to flap your lips yet fail to provide any evidence that what you say is true.

Again how many were arrested, how many sought DGN help, how many were refused?

The clear accusation is that anarchists (according to the person posting as R) failed to support each other.

You and R have failed to make it clear whether you're bitter about some isolated incident that the two of you (ha ha) are involved in or whether there is really a systemic failure.

Until you do, then you remain non credible.

by No 6 Thu Jan 13, 2005 02:46

"his all stems back to rts 2002 and its unprecendented nature. The confusion over subjudice and the advice given (correctly or not?) to not talk about publicaly or privately and assholes having/hogging the info... (not p or k), sort out 02 and we can sort out 04 and future etc., we all witnessed mayday did i witness anyone actually getting arrested, no. What more is there? pc who found legal observing very stressful."

So let me get this straight.

Despite having nothing to do you found legal observing stressful? Wow.

What the hell is your definition of subjuice? Cause he according to dictionary.com thats not a word. Gee you're a great legal support guy unless you mean "sub juice" which means "under juidical review" , which kind of staggers me, what was under sub juice, rts organisers testifying? How. I mean you're legal support, tell me.

Which assholes hogged info?

That the lessons from 2002 have not yet been learnt, which I submit is because no one from RTS or DGN really got involved in the legal ramifications of the protests they set up, and don't have really any clue about what happened and can't even offer hands on pratical advise to the people who may face arrest , based on the experience of previous protests because of the lack of hands on detailed tracking of protestors cases.

Christ in early 2003 the only legal support briefing DNG had was under basic examination a re print of a UK direct action legal support leaflet, and didnt have any info on irish law, because the englishman who wrote the leaflet assumed irish and uk law would be similar.

by pc Thu Jan 13, 2005 01:31

this all stems back to rts 2002 and its unprecendented nature. The confusion over subjudice and the advice given (correctly or not?) to not talk about publicaly or privately and assholes having/hogging the info... (not p or k), sort out 02 and we can sort out 04 and future etc., we all witnessed mayday did i witness anyone actually getting arrested, no. What more is there? pc who found legal observing very stressful.

by No 6 Thu Jan 13, 2005 00:45

"All this chatter about who's more to blame, and who let whom down more, is just decadence. We've got fucking *heaps* of work to do, and this banter isn't gonna help us one little bit."

Micheal the old "lets get past this and move on" thing would be a good idea if er I dunno people weren't still going through the courts and facing charges. so the either point of this thread is utterly wasted on you, because if you'd have bothered to read this thread, this is an ongoing problem some people are still facing. And the grassroots ADD about old problems and dropping a campaign for the next exciting idea is getting old for the wake of people still wading through stuff from two years ago.

"how about a physical public long term presence somewhere where you can talk to real not virtual people... now that would a good idea?"

Uh huh and that can do, lets stick with something till the bitter end that represents that DGN attitude is totally inspiring me.

But no I'm being harsh with people like you Paul and Dunk (and hey he's probably doing his thesis on it) means that this will happen.

by pc Thu Jan 13, 2005 00:34

"how do you contact this group"

"where is that group? an old email address....?, more virtual warriors"

how about a physical public long term presence somewhere where you can talk to real not virtual people... now that would a good idea?

by Michael Thu Jan 13, 2005 00:31

Okay, so the DGN hasn't done enough prisoner support. Lots of people in DGN have never even been arrested before. Some are only barely old enough now to be arrested! (Good luck friends!) :-D

All this chatter about who's more to blame, and who let whom down more, is just decadence. We've got fucking *heaps* of work to do, and this banter isn't gonna help us one little bit.

by No 6 Wed Jan 12, 2005 23:22

"What do you expect? The DGN webiste prior to M2004, the discussions on this forum, the aftermath of RTS2002, the explicit premise of anarchist organisation .... all these things make it very clear that if you are supinely waiting for something to be done for you then you're out of luck."

No I'm supinely (is that a word?) wondering is a group working under a radical social changing agenda doing, er, anything.

"On the other hand if you make an effort to contact people, organise them to support you, work collectively as an individual, take responsibility for yourself and request mutual aid then things work out."

Crap. These are people who are alone how are they able to connect with each, and an organisation that is trying to build a grassroots network without any real attempt to have outreach to people arrested at a demo, is just crap.

And I'm sorry but legal support wasn't able to get their shit together to turn up to offer, er, legal support to people arrained at the special court sittings after May 2004. Spare me the, "they organised". That was pathetic,

"That's been explained above."

Not to my statisfaction.

"In order to support your thesis of abandonment you have to show the following: how many people were arrested; how many of those people were anarchists; how many of them requested aid from anarchists; how many requested anarchists to stay away; how many got support; what quality was that support.

Otherwise your post is just vapid assertions with no basis in reality."

Okay I assert in my experience;

1. No one my the grassroots attempted to put themselves forward as a representive of the protest organisers to testify in cases.

2. What does it matter if they are anarchists? Are they card carrying anarchists what do they have to do be justified anarchists, What disqualifies them? Theres an anarchist on this site who works for the government, some own houses, how do you quantify anarchist?

3. How many of them where able to get aid? Christ the DGN's legal support team couldn't even get their shit together to turn up at the hearings. How many of them turned up at a demo called for by the DGN and then couldn't get through to them due to the level of incompedence and indifference displayed by the DGN

4. The quality of support. As I understand the entire level of support witnessed by me, is one DGN siddling up to one person during one trial and ask did they need financial support (re may rts) this was during the trial, a trial I should add not where the person was on trial but one in which he was a witness againist a garda.

Now would Joe or Andrew or anyone be able to tell me what support was offered to those facing charges post may 2004. What exact attempts where made at out reach. Specific examples welcome.

by Phuq Hedd Wed Jan 12, 2005 21:50

QUOTE: "Falling behind their organisational structure they allow themselves to ensure no one is in charge no one is responsible. Frankly it's my opinion that this is done to avoid legal responisbility, charges such as insightment to riot, which is unfortunate,"

ANSWER: Given that anarchist orgnisational structure involves self-organisation and all the DGN structure has involved trying to encourage people to do things for themselves it's a bit weird that you'd then talk about "ensur[ing] no one is in charge and no one is responsible".

What do you expect? The DGN webiste prior to M2004, the discussions on this forum, the aftermath of RTS2002, the explicit premise of anarchist organisation .... all these things make it very clear that if you are supinely waiting for something to be done for you then you're out of luck.

On the other hand if you make an effort to contact people, organise them to support you, work collectively as an individual, take responsibility for yourself and request mutual aid then things work out.

That's been explained above.

In order to support your thesis of abandonment you have to show the following: how many people were arrested; how many of those people were anarchists; how many of them requested aid from anarchists; how many requested anarchists to stay away; how many got support; what quality was that support.

Otherwise your post is just vapid assertions with no basis in reality.

by No 6 Wed Jan 12, 2005 21:22

This has been a bone of contention of mine for a number of years, and I'm glad I'm not alone.

Essentially both RTS and DGN have acted without thought of the consequences of their actions and the ramifications of the trials. The talk of "support" is vague. What actual support is offered to those who can find it?
What kind of support is actually offered to those who need it? The best that has been mentioned (in the related thread) is having 20 anarchists turn up and the implication that this might "intimidate" a judge, a concept frankly ludricous to anyone who follows the current limerick feuds and the trials. What actual real pratical support is offered? and what is actually needed?

One of the major bones of contention on both RTS and mayday trials is that the gardaí are given free reign to exageratte and down right lie about the mood and plans for the protests. Theres no rebuttal aside from the accused who can't answer for the entire crowd and is too busy trying to keep his own neck out of prison to defend the behaviour of the crowd. This talk of support is empty the kind of support offered is mere solidarity, when pratical support can and should be given.

DGN organise these protests, they speak to the media have spokepersons, but when the times comes to the court appearances they do not come forward. The only exception to his is a badly written and crudely put e-mail re the posponment of the Corcoran trial. They should approach solicitors and take an active attitude persuing aid. Some of the GRN network people have spoken on primetime, defending the protests surely they can do the same in court when someone is facing a prison term, working as a rebuttal witness.

Of course this would take courage and responsibility. Which I'm sorry to say lacking among the anarchist community. They set up the protest others are paying the price, and they are cowering in the background offering only soldarity, claiming they lack leaders it's a "network"

In this respect the anarchist community fall back onto a form of limited liability used by corporations. When things went wrong in 2002 and 2004, leadership so forward in the business post and phoenix and on RTE news, in the run up, disappear. Falling behind their organisational structure they allow themselves to ensure no one is in charge no one is responsible. Frankly it's my opinion that this is done to avoid legal responisbility, charges such as insightment to riot, which is unfortunate, but again these people will stand up and take responibilty when there are no potential legal grief, but when the shit hits the fan, they scurry. I sympathise; but then it's cold comfort for those facing charges that all the organisers will do to help them is just turn up outside the court with a banner, but will not stand up and defend the idealogy of the protest in court.

It may not do anything, it may be ignored, but this cowering lack of responsibilty allows Gardaí to create a picture of the protests unchallenged in court. It's easy for joe to say

"On the practical level unless a defendant group (or individual) requests people to attend court its unlikely that we'd even know a case was going to be heard. On top of this quite a number of defendants have decided to take a 'quietly does it' approach to their case so randomly organising something for a case we had happened to hear of could turn out to piss them off. In the one case where people were unambiguously asked to turn up just about everyone active in DGN did, despite it being (as all are) on a working day."

But as demostrated DGN external communication seems non existant in the fallout of the demo, if the offered isn't open and freely avaliable it's going to be difficult for a defendent to know it's available or more importantly their legal team unfamilar with the style and workings (and I use that term losely) of groups such as these won't know the first thing about it.

I think this is not about playing at anarchism, but rather a lack of foresight and understanding the ramifications of setting up this protests (and not understanding or planning for the fallout of their actions is pretty poor foresight for a group trying to change the way the world is run), and an unwilliness to take the good with the bad. It's not glamorous or exciting or taking to the streets, but having the courage of your convictions to stand up in court and defend the idealogy of the protests, in the hope that it may help a defendents case, and in the long term may encourage that individual to believe that this is the way forward for society, because of the soldarity and strength shown by the DGN.

Ultimately the behaviour of the DGN in the months following these protests and the long dragged out court cases that has made me seriously disillusioned with this type of organisation. The lack of any coherant strategy, the absence of any commited soldarity, the ease in which another campaign lures them away, and the total lack of any structure, makes me question how they expect to achieve anything real or notworthy at all.

by soundwave Wed Jan 12, 2005 19:14

sorry joe but by saying

"The only one on a high horse preaching to everyone else as to how things should be done is yourself with your multiple usernames!"

you seem to be implying that

a) you know who i am
b) i posted the ten thousand other anonymous posts here
c) i have several usernames

and in reply

a) i doubt it very much
b) i have posted once on this thread and once months ago about something else regarding prisoner support
c) never just a letter, havent posted in months and currently using soundwave

"Maybe you should do a bit less preaching and a bit more leading by example - we might all learn something that way."

To be honest i posted the idea of doing a larger prisoner support network on a similar thread before.. And all i've done myself regarding prisoner support is the same as some here. Emailed prisoners, turned up at a court case and try and get info out about the CW5 and Thessaloniki 7. But I personally dont think that enough, im prepared to admit that. Others here agree thats not enough but wash there hands of it. Thats the problem.

by Chekov Wed Jan 12, 2005 17:36

"You don't think the police really expected them to stay in Ireland all that time, did you?"

I sort of guessed that this is what they had in mind when they confiscated their passports as part of their bail conditions.

by Oh people please... Wed Jan 12, 2005 17:01

Next time English anarchists come over for a day of action and get arrested, unless they enjoy the thrill of being homeless in Ireland pending their trial (it's no thrill), they should hop onto a ferry home the moment they're released from police custody.

You don't think the police really expected them to stay in Ireland all that time, did you? If they stayed because of personal relationships or some reasons which can't be discussed here, fine. Otherwise their decision to stay in Ireland all that time pending trial sounds completely crazy.

by Terry - NUIG Ecology Society/AF/Organise (pers caps) Wed Jan 12, 2005 16:51

"Terry from Galway who has done prisoner support work before, point blank refused to get involved in any way with the mayday weekend because DGN had no proper legal/prisoner support setup beforehand for the inevitable arrestees."

Correction I said at an open meeting on the EU presidency and later on an open thread on this site that I wouldn't be going to the day if defendant support wasn't sorted *before hand*...I know some people got it together later...but I get the distinct impression they had to rescue the situation....for a variety of other reasons I wasn't going to be that involved in anything other than turning up on the day anyways.
Basically if you are gonna be busted you need to know (a) you have back up and (b) it is for something worthwhile..... otherwise avoid situations where you may be busted...makes sense....at the moment I would probably avoid any situation where one might get a court appearance...this isn't necessarily got to do with any particular collection of alphabet soup I think it is wider than that. Moreover decribing me as some one who has done prisoner support work is a bit exagerrated.
As Joe says though this discussion is largely unconstructive, one on what to do for Ciaron, Nuin, Karen, Damien and Deirdre would be a 100 times more apt.

by Joe Wed Jan 12, 2005 15:37

The only one on a high horse preaching to everyone else as to how things should be done is yourself with your multiple usernames! Maybe you should do a bit less preaching and a bit more leading by example - we might all learn something that way.

BTW I don't claim to have actually done much defendant support beyond turning up at court cases, socials and fund raisers. But if I was one of the people who had actually put in a far bit of effort I'd be very pissed off and perhaps even demoralised by all this crap. Far from doing better next time I'd be thinking that I'd leave it to some other sucker to do the work and take the abuse that seems to come with it.

Can we try and take this back to a constructive level which needs to include that 'yes quite a bit of work was done but by too few people and we can do better next time'?

by soundwave Wed Jan 12, 2005 15:12

Some people really need to get off there high horses and tell some truth. Prisoner support was nearly non existant around mayday and prisoner support has been nearly non existant since mayday.

People here claim that in order to obtain support all one has to do is seek it.

Now please do tell me how considering the following how one would go about obtaining support:

- No official Grassroots website
- Non updated DGN website
- No telephone numbers or email addresses for a permanent prisoner support
- No prisoner support section of the GG

You might say, email the DGN/WSM/GG

Well maybe but look at it this way if you see nothing on the sites of these organisations then why think they'll help you?

And again, you might say post to indymedia.

Perhaps some folks want privacy for there case and would prefer a one on one meet with some prisoner support mechanism not spreading there misfortune over a public website.

For prisoner support to be successful it has to be helpful, publicised and approachable.

So those on there high horses, where is this helpful, publicised and approachable prisoner support?

As i pointed out above, it doesnt exist. There have been calls here before, by myself and others for more to be done. Perhaps those interested in forming a new prisoner support mechanism should meet up. But again this has all been mentioned before and again a shit stirrer like R can bring it all down to this, some claiming prisoner support exists but could be better and some like myself claiming its not and it should exist.

So what do we do? Wait for R's next statement or get off our asses?

by Joe Wed Jan 12, 2005 13:35

Your right 'Devil's Avocado' I shouldn't have said 'R's post were getting a little boring as the issue is worth discussing. I was just getting frustrated as the method he is using which apart from anything else is dishonest in claiming 'no support' rather than criticising the limits of what has been done. I know (or am 99% certain) of who he is but its up to him to choose how to identify himself here, people often have good reasons for not doing so.

I'm not sure your right as to why Terry didn't get involved but he can speak for himself on this if he wishes. But the reality is that the defendant support work done by DGN for Mayday was at the same level as all the other preparations for the day. In advance DGN divided into a large number of sub-groups, each taking on a particular task. Because the number of people who were consistently involved was quite small (i.e. those who not only went to most meetings but actually then did what they said they would do) the burden in each group was carried by a couple of people on minimum resources. Given the limited resources I actually think the legal group did a pretty good job but it was unfortunate that the follow up work was hampered by one of them ending up in prison in England.

This puts some context on these complaints. If both 'R' and 'Devil's Avocado' had been in a position to help out then this would have doubled what could have been done. But all the same the group that did exist went to and got others to go to all the initial hearings, made preliminary contact with all the defendants and arranged an initial defendants meeting. They also helped with early issues like accommodation for those stuck in Ireland and attempted to keep some sort of social link going (with mixed success for reasons not worth going into here).

Now there were certainly things in every aspect of Mayday - including defendant support - that could have been done better even with the very limited numbers and resources DGN had. As will always be the case when people actually organise to do something that is a little more ambitious then grumbling in the pub with their mates. The movement here is very young and inexperienced and people are learning by 'walking the road' rather than sitting in a classroom to learn or work out the perfect 'how to organise a demo' theory.

Your right that it is a big problem that the DGN website has not been updated since Bush - this reflects the loose and often chaotic nature of that form of network organisation. But to be honest even if it had been updated I'm not sure we would then have been able to answer the questions you list "on how to conduct a legal defense, who to contact, addresses of solicitors" at that time. From talking to defendants about their experiences I think we could begin to start doing this now - indeed it is something that should be done for next time - but this is also once more depending on the same small number of people to do the necessary work. And a major problem, the major problem with the weakness of follow up work post-Mayday was simply exhaustion and burn out. The meant post-Bush there wasn't a DGN meeting for months.

On the "organise stuff _for_ people / organises _with_ people" divide. I was simplifying a much more complex argument but it should be also obvious from the debate about stewarding that the DGN was following a model where it was hoped those who turned up would claim some ownership of the event. The practical side to this was of course that DGN didn't have the resources to do more than it did anyway but there is also a political point in common with RTS that seeks to end the divide between organiser and participant that rules much of left activity in this city. Such an approach is not free of disadvantages but if these are eliminated by organising everything for people you will never get to a developing culture of self-organisation.

In any case its clear that for defendant support apart from the initial meeting it has to be the defendants who take over the organising and direction of their defense. The rest of us can support their initiatives but we shouldn't make decisions for them and this includes organising demos outside of courts. On the practical level unless a defendant group (or individual) requests people to attend court its unlikely that we'd even know a case was going to be heard. On top of this quite a number of defendants have decided to take a 'quietly does it' approach to their case so randomly organising something for a case we had happened to hear of could turn out to piss them off. In the one case where people were unambiguously asked to turn up just about everyone active in DGN did, despite it being (as all are) on a working day.

Your right that if more work had been put into defendant work post-Mayday all this would have been more likely to happen. But you can't say this and then take the cop out that saying 'why don't you do it' isn't enough. If you have been following things, as you appear to have been, then you know how limited resources are. Suggesting how things could be done better should therefore involve some level of being willing to help make them better.

Finally when you say "at the moment DGN/GG seems bereft of ideas, goals, campaigns and organisation that last longer than a Saturday afternoon on the streets" your right and this is something people are very aware of which is why the more long term social centre project has got underway. I'm sure that this two will turn out to have a multitude of flaws and things that could have been done better but we only find these by making the mistakes and learning from them. A road better not walked alone.

by Barry Wed Jan 12, 2005 13:33

mmmm

by Barry (the real one) Wed Jan 12, 2005 12:56

Speaking of which it would be nice if youd differentiate yourself from me who regularly posts here. (wasnt me Dog, some other punter)

by Barry Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:59

" I really should be doing other work in work."

So should other people - which is why speculating on their real identity (while completely hiding your own) stinks. But tell us a bit more about solidarity why don't ya.

by Devil's Avocado Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:34

The first response to the post about no prisoner support was "this is getting tired". I dont think this is getting tired. The SWP vs. Anarchists debate, thats tired. As is the "IAWM is a front" thread. And several others, which repeat ad nauseum on the wire. But to my knowledge, "R" has only posted once before, with one thread, so I'd hardly call the debate tired.

Terry from Galway who has done prisoner support work before, point blank refused to get involved in any way with the mayday weekend because DGN had no proper legal/prisoner support setup beforehand for the inevitable arrestees. I doubt the situation has changed much to make him happier. If someone from the SWP had refused to get involved in AEIP's mayday for the same reason, and publicly stated this, then you can get that people would make it a big issue on this newswire. Someone who helped put up Polly and Joe posted to the grassroots-network list over the summer, berating DGN in no uncertain terms for their complete lack of support for the arrestees. This alone should have had alarm bells ringing and galvanised people into some sort of response.

Conor, you say that you had the option of whether you wanted support from the anarchist community or not for your small misdemeanour. But you've been a member of the anarchist scene for 10-15 years, and have loads of contacts. You have the luxury of that option. The two wombles as well were part of a crew that offer good prisoner support.

People who get arrested, who have no links with DGN etc, do they have that option also? There is nothing on the DGN website for people to go to and find information on how to conduct a legal defence, who to contact, addresses of solicitors, previous experiences of people arrested, a call out for evidence, nothing. After Mayday, presumably people would have looked up the website or done a search for DGN. The web is often a first "stepping stone" for people getting involved. When faced with stale information, they probably draw back and just say "fuck it", and dont bother to try and get help for themselves.

"Joe" says that DGN/WSM doesnt organise stuff _for_ people, it organises _with_ people, and that people who show up to demos etc dont understand that organisation is needed if they are going to come along and get involved. DGN does organise stuff _for_ people - putting up posters and sending out emails means that people who are not au fait with the working processes of anarchism are going to come along. Maybe because they're vaguely interested, possibly care about an issue, want to do more perhaps. Its a slight language difference, but anyone that organises public demos, via posters, flyers, etc is going to have to realise people are going to come along that know absolutely nothing (or very little) of the organisation required to put stuff together.

This means offering a bigger helping hand to them if they've been arrested. It means giving an extra push to ensure these people are supported, and they are aware of the avenues open to them, if they so choose. These people who get arrested - often they're people who come along to demos and remonstrate with the Garda, sometimes loudly or with some verbal aggression, when the Garda start getting heavy; or they sit down in front of them peacefully; and then get picked up themselves. Yet how many of them have drifted into getting involved in putting on stuff? Fuck all.

Saying to critics "why dont YOU do it??" isnt enough. DGN/WSM dont HAVE to do any support at all, but if they're going to organise events for people that arent part of their crew, then they should be willing to go the extra mile when non-aligned people are lifted.

These people are the new people who should be helping out or joining up with DGN/RTS/whoever, but they dont, and its the same pool of "faces" doing stuff again and again. Especially after Mayday, the biggest libertarian event ever in this country, you would think there would be at least a few new people come along. It hasnt happened.

I think its a bit presumptuous to say that ALL the people dont want help just because they havent ferreted out someone from DGN and asked for it. There was a lad in one of the previous public order cases in November who remained resolutely defiant on the stand, saying it was his democratic right to protest. That took a lot of guts to do. But there was nobody there from DGN to support him. Maybe if there was 20 supporters in the courtroom sitting there watching the proceedings the judge may have acted differently. And who knows, maybe he might have had a chat with anarchists after the case, and decided to come along to the next meeting.

This offering of help resonates hugely later. If people are given support, in a couple of years when they reflect on their conviction, or they're asked about it - will they say "ah that was something stupid and childish I did, back when I was a dumb young radical" (how many times do you hear that from middle-aged adults? :), or will they say "yeah I stood my ground against police oppression" ??

Better support means that DGN/anarchism in Dublin will extend itself beyond revolving around organisation of protests. To be honest, at the moment DGN/GG seems bereft of ideas, goals, campaigns and organisation that last longer than a Saturday afternoon on the streets. And yeah, again, the original post seems to be stirring shit simply for the sake of it, but my mental shit has been stirred by it and I think there's something true in there. And I had heard those arguments as well about the people who got arrested, not in those terms but pretty much that, that they only had themselves to blame ultimately.

Not that any of this matters a fuck in the bigger scheme of things anyway. First and final contribution from me. I really should be doing other work in work.

by pc - fearscoldcalling Wed Jan 12, 2005 05:09

when I first heard about the APS idea (anarchist prisoner support), I stupidly asked do you support prisoners or just "anarchist prisoners" ?

( there was discussion here before was it? after the last posting of this type, saying APS seemed only to be about sending letters to random north america prisoner and that's it), which was the _impression_ I had ages ago when I asked that stupid question too,) .

Statement: It does help if you (get to/are able to) know them.

but after reading more about anarchism and the "Industrial Prison Complex" particularily from north american sources...

"The prison system is the armed fist of the State, and is a system for State slavery. It is not really for "criminals" or other "social deviants," and it does not exist for the "protection of society."

It is for State social control and political repression. "

Im beginning to see the point they are making...I would never been a fan of prisons I would have thought of restorative justice or something like that... so support everybody, homes not jails thats the anarcho way.

For example our dear early plane spray painter hasn't ingratiated himself with the comments he's made on this site in the past but I still would congratulate and support him for what he did to highlight Ireland part on the war on terror....

Same goes for Mary Kelly and Eoin Rice hunger striking and the ploughshares and the "on the day'ers".. and I guess all those in Mountjoy and Cloverhill etc...,.no matter if they committed a heinous crime or were found guitly "by a jury of their peers" (a phrase used alot recently here).

thats the theory anyway...

I had an enlightening conversation the other day....
( the last time someone did ask for help the impression i got was no matter what else there was lack of lawyers willing to fight cases politcally..., I related that to someone who had brought up the woeful state of prisoner support in ireland..) I said well I don't know what to do about that at all? Where in the hell does one find them?

The reply was you go to law schools and ask around. YOU ORGANISE!

I really _hadn't_ thought of that at all. --
there have been 3 (public) requests for info/help re mayday on various forums since the last sniping rant.. all have been responded to afaik... do we (or you R) need to know anything more?
--- this "most of the left groups involved have moved on to graze on another issue, _leaving the unconnected to swing in the breeze._"

is the most important part of J's post..., so is the problem there APS or issue hopping, _two way_ communication.(everything push and pull). ya know its _much_ easier to support the pitstop ploughshares because they are so damn public about it they've ensured themselves they've been supported, and guilt for not having doing more isn't the motivator.

but when even the people that know us don't ask for help from anyone, does that say more about anarchos in ireland or ireland's society overall?
--- if one looks for an APS in Ireland on the internet (where else would you look) you get...

more details on prisoners related stuff see www.anarchistps.org
or write to APS, PO Box 3355, Dublin 7

http://www.anarchistps.org
the site doesn't work? where do you get/put up info on dissenting prisoners/arrestees in ireland?

by r Wed Jan 12, 2005 03:57

Wawawawawawawa......adolescent anarchism....lack of punctuation and conservative individualism with a youth kulture pose...heard better excuses in the playground.....you'll grow out of it.......if you host a party or a squat or a demo...you have responsiilities to your guests...not a bad ethic......you invited them over and you left them high and dry....they do the time....you do the whine...johnny selling real estate in malibu...where will you be in 10 years with that quality of solidarity...blame the victim and leave them to the state...right on.......

by two score - up da punx! Tue Jan 11, 2005 22:38

if les angleterres had got out of the squat when they were told to by the irish people then they wouldnt have been arrested. they were acting the mad yoke thinking they were mad hard and all that shite. there were irish people there but you didnt see any of them getting lifted did you? they legged it smart cuz they knew what was coming with all the cops going apeshit in the runup to mayday. joe and polly and neil didnt take advice from the people there to leave straightaway and only when they realised they were being fools they tried to run but got caught in the lane out back. there were four or five irish heads there when the cops got called but they didnt act more-anarcho-than-thou. and as for the students that got taken in on mayday they really do only have themselves to take the blame. everyone was saying stand up and the tossers sat down shouting "peaceful protest man!' while the garda kicked their heads in. but they still carried on with it. no sympathy for any of them. they didnt use their heads.

by Ploughshares Defence Tue Jan 11, 2005 19:49 ploughsharesireland at yahoo dot ie 087 918 4552

Yes folks the Pit Stop Ploughshares are finally going to court in March!

Great line up for their anniversary benefit gig
Thursday Feb 3rd. Mother Redcaps

* Rossa & Ronan & other friends from Kila
* Donal O'Kelly ("Spin the Bottle", "The Van" and a lot of other one man shows he's written & performed himself) does Spoken Word
* "Prison Love" (this could be a self fulfilling prophecy! - great bluegrass out fit)
* Paul O'Toole (needs no introduction)
...and many more!

....funds need to be generated to bring in witnesses for the trial.

...also if you can put up an international anti-war activist - for however long or briefly during the trial - on the floor of your home (we can presently offer Swedes, Noth Americans, East Enders and an Aussie)...please make contact 087 918 4552

...we are running info stalls in at bank opposite Trinity on Saturdays 2pm-4pm, if you can help us staff them that would be great!

by orinoco Tue Jan 11, 2005 14:11

E-Mail Print Version Add to Clippings
May Day charge struck out (via unison.ie)


A MAN arrested as part of a security operation ahead of the celebrations to mark the accession of the new EU states has had a trespass charge against him struck out. Briton, **** ******** [name redacted by IMC Ireland Editorial as Google summary inappropriately conveyed the impression that named individual was guilty]) was charged in Dublin District Court with trespass on a private residence at Leeson St Lr on April 27, just days before the May 1 celebrations. In November, two others arrested on the same day had charges against them dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Shane Hickey

by Joe - WSM pers cap Tue Jan 11, 2005 13:24

The impression that we (WSM) lose interest in defendants after an event we've been involved in is false, not least because such defendants pretty much always include some WSM members. However its worth considering the following

1. We seldom organise things on our own but work through coalitions and networks. So post-event our contribution towards such things is through such networks rather then suddenly setting out on our own.
2. A lot of court support is not very visible unless whoever is doing it chooses to boast about it. In general for instance we don't publicise it when we make donations towards court costs.
3. When things go wrong it is always easier to look for someone to blame rather than a solution. Defendant support is pretty much always a case of things going wrong except in those cases where people want to be arrested to make a point.
4. We don't do things for people. We do things with people (this is a basic principle of anarchist organising), So any real ongoing defendant work is going to be based around helping a defendant group organise rather than doing stuff for individuals.

In relation to (4) I think there is a real problem with many recent events simply because most people who take part and are arrested have simply turned up on the day and don't realise the need for organisation. The libertarian movement here (and elsewhere) has yet to find a way of convincing those arrested in the aftermath of the event that they need to look at collectively organising their defense rather than relying on lawyers or sympathic supporters to do so.

Threads like this are pretty unhelpful as they tend to carry the message that the answer is in 'real' support rather than self-organisation. This easily turns into people whining at each other and getting defensive something that undermines rather than prepares for future cases.

by a womble Tue Jan 11, 2005 02:13

Hi R

Please can you forward any info you have of court appearances to our email address (I rarely check Ireland IMC - though it has a heck of alot more political debate than our local imc!). Plus I don't feel it my place to comment on the legal campaign in ireland post-mayday as I don't know what did or didn't happen. All I wanna say is please just put the info out, it's so shit when hardly anyone who came from London doesn't know that trials are still coming up. again not their fault if theres no info coming out.

anarchist greetings

A (wombles@hushmail.com)

p.s. the obscure marxist journal will have a response written by some of us in the next issue.

by J Mon Jan 10, 2005 20:34

This story might be shit-stirring but it still makes a valid point. Time and again people in this country get hauled before the courts months (or maybe even a year or two) after the event and, by then, most of the left groups involved have moved on to graze on another issue, leaving the unconnected to swing in the breeze.

It's not good enough - and plezze don't respond with the usual brainless 'Well why don't you do it?' First off, that's not a response to the query - it's avoidence - and secondly in my case I HAVE done it. The truth is, however, that once a campaign dies down, so too does interest from the likes of the SWP, WSM, etc etc, and any poor unfortunate facing charges a year or so later is quietly abandoned.

It has happened too often and I'm getting sick of it. Don't call for direct action or pickets or marcges unless you're willing to take responbility for those unjustly charged after the event.

That's all I want to say. Won't be contributing further to this thread.

by Ciaron - Ploughshares Mon Jan 10, 2005 19:19 087 918 4552

Yep, it's hard to figure out in what spirit the original article was written ........but the old IWW saying goes "they're in court/jail for us, we're on the loose for them" . WithouT solidarity there won't be much resistance.

The Pit Stop Ploughshares go to trial on March 7th. at the Dublin Four Courts, the war on Iraq gets worse and the opposition to it is not very visible.

Yep we would like as much solidarity as you can muster in the 7 week run up to our trial - gigs, donations to bring relevant witnesses, downloading and distributing the trial poster on our site anywhere in Ireland etc
WWW.PLOUGHSHARESIRELAND.ORG

The link below is a good article on our case that has come out in the NYCW (founded 1933- with a 80,000 mailing)...so that's good.

Lots of experienced activists will be attending the trial from U.S. & Europe and it should be a good opportunity to mix and share ideas on how to resist this war.

And of course it would be nice to get continued solidarity should we get sent down.

Many thanx to all those who have accompanied us thus far from whatever traditions you spring.

http://www.jonahhouse.org/Trotta,Carmen1204.htm

by Terry - NUIG Ecology Society/AF/Organise (pers caps) Mon Jan 10, 2005 17:48

I have on occassion been very critical of the current state of defendant support, however the above article by claiming this -

"Talking casually to members of the anarchist community about these convictions, you get a similar attitude to when asked about the 2 Wombles arrested (a continuing source of antipathy between the UK and Irish anarchists). "It was their own fault", etc...etc.. etc....

Reveals the orginal poster to be stirring shit....what he says there is far from the case..as anyone who knows would know, and moreover if it was the case that peeps were saying that indy readers would already know,as I would have posted about it.

As the previous posters point out some defendants want political engagement of some form and others don't, there is a serious issue in regard to defendant support but I would strongly suspect R. is using this issue rather than seeking to address it.

by pc Mon Jan 10, 2005 17:34

why is this stirring rant only written now, did R read about these cases in the newspaper last week just like i did...why doesn't R organise legal support... (what will he do to those that don't want it) whoever has the info ain't telling anyone...

by R. Isible Mon Jan 10, 2005 16:27

1. Does anyone have a summary of how many were arrested, how many were charged, how many won/lost court cases?

2. It is interesting that "R" links to an obscure article in an obscure journal by "Geoffrey Brown". R's post appears to have as its central premise that anarchists are bad including the Womble variety. This is masked in supposed outrage at the "anarchist" "non support" of wombles.

by krossie Mon Jan 10, 2005 15:14

Yeah I was up myself on a relatively minor thing from Mayday (threatening and abusive behaviour) - my judgement was I just wanted it out of the way and finished before krimbo so I copped a plea.

I was offered both personal and political support from grassroots people and from the WSM (of which I am a member as it happens) - but I decided just to get it out of the way fast.

many of the arrests on the Navan road were young people who just got just caught up on the day and most have decided that they want to contest things privately, avoid a record and did not want to make a major political issue out of it.

the Wombles did and they were supported - possibily not as well as they could have been initially but that's another issue.

The mysterious "R's" post is a pretty naked attempt at shit stiring and should be ignored in my view

see more at

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67265&topic=mayday2004

R says
"Rather than get involved in a difficult legal support campaign, they have now switched their time (and money) to the far easier and fashionable "autonomous centre" campaign."

Again a really wierd comment - there are quite a few people involved in the social centre campaign in Dublin including some anarchists. But I don't see exactly how people "switched" from one thing to another.

The small forces that are there do what they can. If people didn't ask for legal support and use their own solicitors and have no interest in politicising their cases then that's that in my view


R says
""It was their own fault", "They should have left the squat when they were told", "They were far too headstrong, if they'd listened to the Dublin people then they wouldnt be in prison"

Don't know what circles R is moving in but I've NEVER heard these bizare view points by ANYONE involved in the MAYDAY events

For what REALLY happened in Joe and Poly's cases check link below

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67411&topic=mayday2004



Krossie

by Joe Mon Jan 10, 2005 13:55

'R' this is getting a little bit boring. Where defendants have asked for people to turn up in court anarchists and others have done so. At the post Mayday defendents meeting it was clear that a number of defendents felt that this sort of support might damage their case. I think their wrong but in that context I'm not going to turn up at court cases except where the defendents concerned have made clear that this is what they want.

What I don't get about your repetition of these posts is what you expect to achieve apart from pissing people off, in particular those who have done a fair bit of work around this. If you were actually interested in helping the defendents organise you could call a meeting or even just post advance notices of court dates that support is requested for. This is what others have done and people have responded, there were around 40 at the final wombles case for instance.