Paul Murphy in Brussels speaking to The European United Left/Nordic Green Left, The GUE/NGL is a Confederal Political Group in the European Parliament and consists of 52 MEPs from 12 Member States
If for some strange reason you might not be acquainted with the JobstownNotGuilty case in Ireland, you can read details here 'Protesting is not a crime -Jobstown protesters' court case looming' .
At home in Ireland you would imagine most people know about the Jobstown case and all the progressive forces are behind it giving their full support.
However, a cursory glance at web pages, facebook and twitter accounts of trade unions, left wing parties, R2W etc. you get the impression that the case is not rated highly.
In fact there is a noticeable dearth of support. This lack of home support is not only depressing, it is, in our view, symptomatic of agenda driven, competitive politics of self interested, insular trade unions and political parties in Ireland today.
Here we have a high profile case that the defense called “a recipe for totalitarianism" where a 17 year old youth has already been convicted of false imprisonment and it is only weeks until seven more protesters will be in the dock, a case about the right of assembly attacked by the full force of the State , the right to protest being criminalised, a case where a socialist TD and others were lifted in dawn raids and are now facing up to seven years in prison.
Where is the condemnation and solidarity?
Support abroad
Belgium train drivers,
Pual Murphy, AAA TD, one of the #jobstownnotguilty accused, was in Brussels last Wednesday speaking to @GUENGL , a European United Left group. He wscanvassing support for the Jobstown case due to restart on 24th Aprilthis year.
Mr Murphy, on his facebook page, speaking about meeting MEPs said " I've already spoken with many and they're shocked that protesters are facing false imprisonment charges and understand it is clearly a threat to the right to protest."
They may very well be shocked but what about home support. If we can't fight for our own rights how can we expect others to do it for us.
Home support
Trade Union & Socialist Coalition, TUSC, conference, England supporting JobstownNotGuilty
Some of the groups that have declared their support on JobstownNotGuilty's twitter or facebook pages, as far as we can see, aree.g Éirigí, Socialist Party, FINGALOL, R2WKillarney, SwordsSaysNo, Populist Watch Irl, Not4ur Entertainment, construction branch of Unite trade union and of course all the many individual messages of support.
Unite Construction branch donation
However, we would like to be proved wrong and invite comments or go to JobstownNotGuilty pages and pledge your support. Highlight the case in your own pages and also attend the forthcoming protests in Dublin
