Rossport solidarity demo at Irish Embassy

2nd July 2009
Peo­ple gath­ered in Lon­don out­side the Irish Embassy at 1pm yes­ter­day to protest at the dra­con­ian jail­ing of 7 Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors in Co. Mayo, Ire­land. The 4 women and 2 men were arrest­ed on Sun­day June 28th for their part in the ongo­ing cam­paign against the con­struc­tion of the Shell Cor­rib gas pipeline in Erris, Mayo. They were remand­ed on Mon June 29th to appear at court this Fri­day, 3rd July at 10.30am. Those being held on remand were all charged with minor pub­lic order offences (sec­tion 6: breach of the peace, sec­tion 8: refus­ing instruc­tions of a guard and sec­tion 9: will­ful obstruc­tion of a high­way — 3 of them were arrest­ed for sim­ply walk­ing across the road). None of these offences would usu­al­ly result in some­one being put on remand. We are con­cerned that the treat­ment of the pro­tes­tors has been unjust for the fol­low­ing rea­sons;

- None of the pro­tes­tors had pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, yet they were refused nor­mal bail con­di­tions
— Judge Devins denied and/or deferred deci­sions on their kegal aid, although it was evi­dent that some of the pro­tes­tors are not able to afford their legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.
— Judge Devins has shown her dis­dain and bias against Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors. Send­ing peo­ple to jail whose first offence is to be arrest­ed for not obey­ing the direc­tions of a guard is ridicu­lous and unprece­dent­ed.

We deliv­ered a let­ter to the Irish Ambas­sador call­ing for him to ensure that the pro­tes­tors are treat­ed fair­ly, released from remand, and are allowed access to the legal aid to which they are enti­tled. It also express­es gen­er­al con­cerns regard­ing the recent treat­ment of pro­tes­tors by the Gar­dai and by the secu­ri­ty that Shell have employed have employed to pro­tect their gas project — Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices. I‑RMS have been con­tin­u­al­ly accused of using exces­sive force against the pro­tes­tors. The let­ter also calls for a fair and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the recent alle­ga­tions and for assur­ances that cam­paign­ers who are car­ry­ing out their demo­c­ra­t­ic right to protest are treat­ed fair­ly and their human rights upheld.

* The protest also hoped to raise aware­ness of events in Co. Mayo by hold­ing ban­ners and giv­ing out leaflets ask­ing peo­ple to sup­port the sev­en on remand, and to make their protest against the actions of Shell and the Irish Gov­ern­ment.

For fur­ther info­ma­tiona and updates: www.indymedia.ie and www.corribos.com
Email: info@corribos.com

Shell to Sea spokesper­sons: Ms Mau­ra Har­ring­ton (T.087 9591474) an Mr Ter­rence Con­way (T.086 0866264). Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp media co-ordi­na­tor: Mr Niall Har­nett (T. 086 8444966)