Grafton Street Marks & Spencer Protest

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Friday January 16, 2009 03:40

by éirígí PRO - éirígí

Pro-Israeli Marks & Spencer subject of 'trolley jam' and vocal protest

Last night éirígí activists took part in an anti-Israeli protest both inside and outside of Marks & Spencer on Dublin's Grafton Street.

Start of the 'trolley jam'

Marks and Spencer on Dublin’s exclusive Grafton Street was last night, January 15, the scene of a vocal and colourful anti-Israeli demonstration. Upwards of twenty-five éirígí activists took part in the action – both inside and outside of the store.

As part of the demonstration full shopping trolleys were abandoned at every checkout as letters of protest were handed to the staff working at the tills. ‘Trolley-jamming’ has become a popular form of peaceful direct action against retailers such as Marks and Spencer.

As chants of ‘Free, Free, Gaza’ and ‘Free, Free Palestine’ echoed around the store management wasted little time in summoning the Gardai to assist the overwhelmed private security guards.

For more than fifteen minutes business in the flagship store was severely disrupted, before the éirígí activists moved the protest outside onto Ireland’s premier shopping street.

The protest was then joined by a number of Palestinians based in Ireland. Hundreds of leaflets calling for a boycott of Marks and Spencer were distributed to passers-by during the course of the following forty-five minutes.

As has been the case with all of the recent pro-Palestinian protests the reaction of people was almost exclusively positive.

Speaking about the protest éirígí’s Brian Leeson said, ‘Tonight is a great example of the kind of protests that need to take place throughout the world if real pressure is to brought to bear on the Israeli government,’

‘Twenty years ago a worldwide boycott of South Africa brought real and direct pressure to bear on the apartheid regime. It was international solidarity combined with the resistance of the South African majority that ultimately brought about the collapse of that hateful regime.

‘Today it is the people of Palestine that need the assistance of the international community. Marks and Spencer have a long and close relationship with Israel. Indeed a former Chairman, Marus Sieff, has publicly stated that it was one of the main objectives of the company to provide economic support to the state of Israel.

‘éirígí are calling on people to boycott Marks and Spencer until they stop stocking Israeli goods and cut their links with that rogue state. Furthermore we are calling for a wider South African style boycott of Israel until its very own apartheid system is dismantled.’

A short video of the protest can be viewed on the eirigi website at

http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest160109.html