The violence at Monday's street protest was more than a case of young gardaí out of control. William Hederman, arrested at a rally last year, suggests it was part of an ongoing attempt by the authorities to silence the anti-capitalist movement
This week's disturbing film record of Monday's Reclaim The Streets event revealed to a wide audience a reality of which participants in street protests in recent months were already painfully aware.
There is a presumption in some quarters that gardaí would not use force on peaceful protesters unless provoked and that people do not get arrested unless they have committed an offence.
Having participated in or observed several anti-car protests in recent months, I can state this presumption is inaccurate.
While the Garda's approach was a shock to the television-viewing public, it was not a surprise to many political activists. What was new about this week's protest was the availability of high-quality video footage.
Since last summer, there has been a remarkable shift in the Garda's approach to dealing with protests by the "anti-capitalist" or "internationalist" movement. Activists report that gardaí have been moving in suddenly and aggressively, making arrests and bringing criminal charges under the controversial Public Order Act (POA).
The Garda denies that there has been an increase in arrests at street protests but is unable to provide related figures for arrests.
However activists who have been organising demonstrations for years without witnessing arrests or Garda heavy-handedness insist there has been a marked increase on both counts.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has also noted this with alarm, particularly the increasing use of the POA. When the ICCL expressed concern at the introduction of the Act in 1994, assurances were given that it would only be used to deal with late-night drunkenness. In practice, the POA is now used for virtually all political protest-related charges.
The first signs of a new strategy came at a Critical Mass cyclists' rally on European Car Free Day in September with the arrest and charging of five people, including myself, for "obstructing traffic".
Three weeks later there was an event that barely registered in the mainstream media but is described in ominous tones by those present: the anti-capitalist protest at the public-private partnership meeting at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin.
The Burlington Protest, as it has become known, was remarkable for several reasons. A journalist who was recording the event with a video camera was arrested and had his camera and tape confiscated. Plain-clothes detectives pointed out known organisers to uniformed gardaí, who then baton-charged the group and arrested 14 of them.
The activists were taken to three separate Garda stations and were held overnight - unprecedented for public-order offences not involving late-night drunkenness.
Further arrests took place at anti-war vigils in Dublin in October and Shannon in December.
The important questions are: at what level in the force did this change in strategy originate, and why? The view expressed by anti-capitalists is that the decision to crack down on them was made at an even higher level than the Garda authorities.
They claim the Government is afraid of their movement, following the 300,000-strong protests in Genoa and similar shows of strength elsewhere.
The thesis is that the growing movement poses a threat to the legitimacy of the prevailing economic system and more specifically to the Government's programme of privatisation (hence the remarkably forceful way in which the Burlington protest was dealt with).
Whatever about claims of Government fear, the Irish and other European governments have clearly shown that they do not understand the anti-capitalist movement and do not know how to respond intellectually to it. The alternative which appears to have been adopted is suppression: criminalising its members by repeatedly arresting and charging them, and hopefully deterring others from participating through heavy-handedness.
In other words, Monday's violence was not simply a case of young gardaí "out of control".
It is also part of a strategy to demonise and deter the anti-capitalist movement and those perceived to be part of it (including cycling activists and anti-war protesters). Whatever you make of these theories about Garda attempts to stamp out certain political groups, what I can attest to from my own experience is that being verbally threatened by gardaí at a rally, arrested and faced with the prospect of a criminal record is a powerful deterrent to exercising one's right to protest.
I do not regard what we did as a serious offence: a group of cyclists creating a traffic jam on one street on European Car Free Day (an EU-sponsored event involving more than a thousand cities) to highlight the traffic jams caused by cars on every other day of the year.
After a three-hour spell in a cell, serious criminal charges, two court appearances and several hundred pounds in legal fees, I emerged with no conviction and no criminal record, but a strong disinclination to take part in the next cyclists' rally.
Gardaí have generally enjoyed the respect of the Irish public. If violent behaviour goes unpunished and the increasing arrest tally goes unquestioned, there is a danger that our police force will become an agent of political suppression.
Regardless of one's views on cars in Dublin or on the privatisation of state companies, this issue poses questions fundamental to a free democracy: is our right to peaceful protest being threatened, and do we care?
William Hederman is an Irish Times journalist
whederman@irish-times.ie