Gardaí frustrated as protests in Mayo continue

30 June 2013 This week has seen large num­bers of peo­ple con­tin­u­al­ly walk­ing down to Shel­l’s tun­nel­ing com­pound, dis­rupt­ing work and block­ing Shell traf­fic, and many peo­ple from the camp have tak­en advan­tage of the sun­ny weath­er to spend the days help­ing locals with turf col­lect­ing- many hands make light work! Mean­while the guards have spent their time patrolling around harass­ing peo­ple on the roads.

 

A Brief blow by blow

Thurs­day morn­ing as a con­voy passed the camp, 20 Gar­daí tried to block the gate to the camp and threw peo­ple into ditch­es, push­ing one per­son­’s head into the water in the ditch and gen­er­al­ly being a bit vio­lent. Two peo­ple were arrest­ed. One was let out with a cau­tion and the oth­er was held in cus­tody, brought to court in Castle­bar Fri­day morn­ing and denied bail, so he is now in Castlerea Prison await­ing a court appear­ance 5th July.

Lat­er on Thurs­day morn­ing a small group went to Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion to col­lect their friends and one per­son was dragged out­side the cop­shop, pushed to the ground and arrest­ed for alleged crim­i­nal dam­age on Sun­day 23rd June. He was held overnight and brought to court in Castle­bar on Fri­day morn­ing. He has been grant­ed bail and released on the con­di­tion he not enter or inter­fere with Shell prop­er­ty or traf­fic, and signs on once a week at Bel­mul­let Gar­da Sta­tion. He will be up in court on 10th July.

Thurs­day after­noon a large group of 30 or so peo­ple walked down to the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose, stop­ping work inside the com­pound and stop­ping any Shell traf­fic from enter­ing or exit­ing the com­pound for over 3 hours. Once again IRMS (Shell pri­vate secu­ri­ty) was polic­ing the pub­lic road, push­ing peo­ple and hold­ing peo­ple until the guards arrived. Two peo­ple were arrest­ed on the road. One per­son was released and will appear in Bel­mul­let Court on 10th July, the oth­er was arrest­ed for out­stand­ing fines and brought to Moun­tjoy wom­en’s prison in Dublin. She was held overnight and released Fri­day morn­ing.

Thurs­day fin­ished off at 6pm when the guards final­ly attempt­ed to clear the road, every­one left and no one else was arrest­ed. A long queue of 20 vehi­cles and lor­ries which had been stuck inside final­ly were able to leave the com­pound.

Fri­day 28th June at 7am one per­son climbed a tri­pod erect­ed in the road between Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery and the Augh­oose tun­nel­ing com­pound, stop­ping all traf­fic going into the com­pound until 11.30am when the road was cleared and the per­son was arrest­ed. That per­son is being charged with Sec­tions 8 and 9 of the pub­lic order act and will be up in Bel­mul­let court on 10th July.

Three peo­ple walk­ing back to camp from the tri­pod on Fri­day were fol­lowed by guards, and an attempt was made to arrest one of them but they jumped into a field and got away. This isn’t the first time that peo­ple have been harassed on the roads this week by Gar­daí. Tues­day night as peo­ple were walk­ing back from the pub the guards were stop­ping peo­ple who were walk­ing in twos or alone, ask­ing for names address­es and even emails. One per­son refused to give his details, say­ing he had­n’t done any­thing out of the ordi­nary and was only walk­ing home, and he was arrest­ed and brought to Bel­mul­let gar­da sta­tion. He was released in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing with no charges.

Oth­er things that have hap­pened this week: Win­dows of a Shell house were bro­ken, graf­fi­ti appeared on the main gates of the tun­nel­ing com­pound, and a Shell truck ran into prob­lems with spuds up the exhaust and some­one doing in its tyres. Who knows what else the pix­ies have got­ten up to.…

Cops assault­ing peo­ple on the road

Push­ing peo­ple into ditch­es then arrest­ing them

This is the pipe being laid between the refin­ery and the tun­nel­ing com­pound