Workers Solidarity Movement

Upwards of 50 staff and students attended a protest at NUI Maynooth today in a show of solidarity for fellow student Jerrie Ann Sullivan in the wake of the report into the Rossport “rape tape” incident released this week by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. The impromptu protest, organised by the NUIM Politics and Sociology Society, was called to register the “abhorrence” of the rape comments incident and its handling by GSOC and Irish media. Despite the wet and windy conditions, the crowd listened to a range of speakers each of whom condemned GSOC’s handling of this particular case and policing in Corrib more generally.

This technical note was produced by Shell to Sea to counter the misleading implications about file deletions found in the GSOC July 2011 ‘Interim Report’ into the Corrib cops 'rape tape' incident.  It was published as part of a Shell to Sea response into that report.  GSOC had used language to suggest that the recordings of the incident itself had been interfered with, a suggestion that was picked up and incorrectly reported by many sections of the media as fact.  RTE were later forced to issue an apology for their inaccurate reporting.

Seven academics from NUI Maynooth have released this statement revealing the details of how GSOC treated them in the course of its 'investigation' into the Garda who recorded themseves threatening to rape a women in their custody to force her to give them her name and address.  The statement was published as part of response to GSOC's highly misleading interim report.

In this personal account Jerrie Ann reveals the exraordinary pressure she was put under by GSOC after Garda in Corrib accidentally recorded themselves discussing threatening to rape a women she had been arrested with during a protest against Shell's experiemntal raw gas pipeline construction in Erris. "The GSOC ‘Public Interest Investigation’ has to date served only to mislead the media and the public about the facts of the case, which are actually straightforward"  This piece was written as an appendix to the Shell to Sea report on the GSOC interim report.

Station’s crime correspondent Paul Reynolds falsely reported that recording of Garda rape conversation was ‘tampered with’

Shell to Sea has revealed that RTÉ is being compelled to broadcast an apology ahead of Wednesday's Six-One and Nine O’Clock TV news programmes, as a result of RTÉ's biased coverage of Shell's attempt to build an experimental gas pipeline and refinery in Erris. In this specific case, RTÉ chose to ignore the facts as explained to them by Shell to Sea around technical issues concerning the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) investigation into the conversation Garda had about threatening to rape two women Shell to Sea campaigners they had arrested in April this year. RTÉ instead reported as fact the false suggestions of Justice Minister Alan Shatter, that part of the recording of the arrest had been deleted. 

During the week the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission released an interim report on the Garda rape threat tape recordings that were revealed last April. The report contains a major error that suggests GSOC are the source of repeated attempts to spin the story in the media as somehow being the fault of the women the Garda were recorded discussing threatening to rape. The timing of the release of the report was also suspect, coming in the week Shell resumed construction and the day before a national day of action in Erris durig which four Shell to Sea campaigners were injured by Garda and/or private security violence. Such was the level of spin applied that some media made the mistake of leading with the news that the Garda had been cleared of something no one had ever accused them of, directly threatening the two women with rape.

The media narrative regarding the Corrib Garda rape remarks played out with sickening predictability. Sticking as closely as possible to the Garda Press Office line, the news media decided that this was an isolated incident: yes, it was inappropriate for Gardaí to joke about raping captive women, but the matter is under investigation, and anyway it's all just a bit of private banter between colleagues. No need for a wider discussion about societal attitudes towards women, or about the militarised policing of political protest in North Mayo and elsewhere. Up popped Kevin Myers to explain why men are the real victims here, oppressed by the 'politically-correct' thought police, while Vincent Browne informed us that rape jokes “are just part of the lingo of Irish males” and that's that.

A couple of hundred people turned out in the sunshine this afternoon to show solidarity with the women who are spoken about in the Garda rape comment audio which was released earlier this week. The message of todays event, which was organised by an ad hoc group of organisations and individuals concerned with justice, equality, and women's and human rights under the heading 'Say no to the trivialisation of rape', was that rape is not a joke. Organiser Susan Ms McKay from the National Women's Council said: "Jokes about rape are never funny. Rape is recognised in law as being second only to murder in terms of gravity. An Garda Síochána are responsible for upholding the law and for protecting the public. Their behaviour must be exemplary, and they must respect the people they serve. That includes women. We are half the population, and we are the majority of the population at risk when it comes to crimes of sexual violence."