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Shell and Irish State forcibly break picket,injuries reported,solidarity needed!

Starstruck | 03.10.2006 11:08 | Rossport Solidarity | Ecology | Repression | World

Hundreds of police present (170 directly at Ballinaboy according to police figures).
Riot police brought up from Cork and held on stand by.
Mood among protesters resilient.





Tuesday:

3.30 a.m. to 4.00 a. m. Police roadblocks were put up on both sides of the refinery site, and at gate 2 into it.
The roadblocks were 1 km away from the main gates. People parked their cars at the gates and walked to the picket.

4.30 a.m. Carey plant hire is offloading crowd control barriers at the main gate.

4.50 a.m. Garda assembling barriers.

5.00 a.m. The Garda tow off people’s vehicles, citing a Traffic act.

5.05 a.m. Picket stands in front of gate, about 70 people and 170 cops, at some stage in time, or perhaps on one particular side of the 1 km cordon, the police began to prevent people from arriving at the picket.

5.15 a.m. Police are still moving cars, and have established a barrier cordon on both sides of the main gate.

5.20 a.m. Security arrive - this is a normal shift change and security and a couple of other maintenance workers are normally allowed through the picket and onto the site.
Nonetheless Garda insist on forcing security in, despite the fact the picket wasn’t stopping them and never stops them, they aggressively push people out of the way and after a choking one woman is hospitalised. (ambulance arrives at 6.20 a.m.)

6.35 a.m. Cop with megaphone asks that old people, children and females move to the back of the picket as there may be confrontation.
The people sit down and recite the rosary in Gaelic.

6.35 a.m. - 7.05 a.m. Order ’send in the carrying squad’ is given. Four cops per person pick people up or drag them, into cordoned off pens on either side of the main gate. One man has his finger broken during this.
The police tow away more cars. So at this stage, and this has continued up to now, people are being held, not under arrest, in police pens behind barriers on either side of the main gate.

7.45 a.m. John Egan, Shell pr and former BBC journalist in Nigeria, is standing beside the Nigerian memorial opposite the main gate observing the scene/
Mini-buses and cars containing scab labour are driven into the site through the main gate.

8. 00 a.m. Large trucks arrive, flatbeds with diggers and also tippers carrying gravel.

8.30 a.m. Some police withdrawals.

8.45 a.m. 3 flatbeds leave the site after making delivery.

Full report and photos to follow.

Follow this story here-  http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78777

Pics are NOT from this morning but show the site of this mornings repression

Starstruck