Anti-PSNI Protest – British Embassy, Dublin, February 27

As part of its recently launched ‘Different Name – Same Aim’ campaign éirígí is to hold an anti-PSNI protest outside of the British Embassy in Dublin at 2pm on Saturday, February 27th. The protest follows on the back of a similar protest in west Belfast on Monday last (February 8) which was attended by more than fifty people. (Opposing British Repression)

Over the last couple of years éirígí has regularly organised protests outside of the massive British embassy in Dublin. In August 2008 (Britain Challenged on the Streets – End 42-Day Detention!), March 2009 (Death Squads Out of Ireland) and August 2009 (Internment Anniversary Marked in Dublin and Enniskillen) dozens of people attended protests in opposition to 42-day detention, the deployment of British Army ‘special forces’ in Ireland and the continued use of plastic bullets respectively.

Speaking before the upcoming protest éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mháistír said, “Over the last few months the establishment political parties along with the Dublin and London governments, have attempted to present the so called transfer of justice and policing as the final piece in the jigsaw of a normalised Six Counties. But ever greater numbers of people are coming to the conclusion that this transfer is nothing more then a publicity stunt designed to boost the credibility of the PSNI.

“With the launch of our ‘Different Name, Same Aim’ campaign we in éirígí are highlighting the fundamentally irreformable nature of British policing in Ireland. It deploys draconian tactics, in the form of 28-day detention, Section 44 harassment, the firing of plastic bullets and so forth, in the vain hope that it can succeed where its predecessor organisations in the RUC and RIC failed.

“The British embassy in Dublin has been the scene of many hundreds of protests over the years, protest of all sizes on a wide variety of issues related to the British occupation. For people in the Twenty-Six Counties the building represents a very real manifestation of British interference in Ireland. I would encourage anyone who is opposed to British rule and the paramilitary PSNI to come along to the protest.”