Two Irish Anti-Shell Campaigners Jailed for Civil Disobedience

31.7.2009

— Eight and four month sen­tences show dra­mat­ic increase in repres­sion —

Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers Mau­ra Har­ring­ton and Niall Har­nett were sen­tenced to four and eight months in jail respec­tive­ly at Bell­mulet dis­trict court today. Both pro­test­ers have been con­vict­ed for tak­ing action as part of a cam­paign of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against the ill-fat­ed Cor­rib Gas Project. Mau­ra was giv­en her four month sen­tence under Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act; ‘fail­ing to com­ply with the direc­tions of a Gar­da’. The sen­tence was hand­ed down in rela­tion to an inci­dent that occurred duing a protest at Shel­l’s ‘land­fall’ com­pound gate on 30th August 2008. Niall was sen­tenced to eight months in rela­tion to two sep­a­rate inci­dents. He was giv­en a four month sen­tence under Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic order act, and anoth­er four months under Sec­tion 2, for the sup­posed assault of a Gar­da.

Mau­ra had dri­ven her car to the gate of the com­pound which is the site where the high pres­sure gas pipeline is to come ashore. She then refused to move her car in one of sev­er­al acts of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that Mau­ra has engaged in. This is the third time this year that Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, retired local school prin­ci­pal, has been jailed for peace­ful­ly protest­ing against the Cor­rib Gas project.

The alleged assault for which Niall was con­vict­ed occured at the com­pound fence and eye wit­ness acounts and video footage shows Niall attempt­ing to aid anoth­er pro­test­er gar­da who is being vio­lent­ly assault­ed by a Gar­da. Niall, who is on his way to Castlerea Prison (Co. Roscom­mon.) after sen­tenc­ing this after­noon said:

“I have been jailed for my oppo­si­tion and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to Shell and their facil­i­ta­tors in the Irish State, and for my part in a bril­liant protest which will con­tin­ue and will grow. They will not get away with the destruc­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, the envi­ron­ment and the give­away of Irish nat­ur­al resources. My motives are pure, and this sen­tence will have served a pur­pose if it expos­es the lengths the State will go in their com­plic­i­ty in the rip-off of Ireland’s nat­ur­al resources”.

Both defend­ents were forced to choose between sign­ing restric­tive bonds to keep the peace or lengthy jail terms. The bonds would have placed lim­its on and pre­vent­ed each of them from exer­cis­ing their demo­c­ra­t­ic rights to free­dom to protest and free­dom of move­ment. Under such bonds they would have been for­bid­den from attend­ing any protest and exclud­ed from the areas around any Shell sites.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way said: “Cer­tain promi­nent pro­test­ers appear to have been tar­get­ed in an attempt to crush resis­tance in the area. These jail sen­tences rep­re­sent the lastest exam­ples of a sus­tained cam­paign by the state, in con­junc­tion with Shell, to crim­i­nalise and intim­i­date the local com­mu­ni­ty and their sup­port­ers in order to imple­ment their project at any cost. Mau­ra and Niall are coura­geous cam­paign­ers against the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, the threat to health and safe­ty and the give­away of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. ”

A protest was organ­ised by Dublin Shell to Sea group for Thurs­day 30th July out­side Moun­tjoy prison where Mau­ra was tak­en after sen­tenc­ing on Thurs­day morn­ing.