Palestine campaigners protesting scandalous Israel match occupy Irish Department of Sport

Irish anti-genocide activists have boldly occupied the Department of Sport’s headquarters in Dublin. The campaigners did so in opposition to the Football Association of Ireland’s (FAI) disgraceful decision to proceed with fixtures against apartheid ‘Israel’, the illegitimate land theft project occupying historic Palestine.

In a statement, League of Ireland Fans for Palestine, a key player in the Stop The Game campaign, said:

[The action] is part of a continuing protest which will intensify until these two shameful fixtures have been stopped.

The Government has placed pressure on the FAI, who are also culpable, to fulfil these fixtures. Taoiseach Micheal Martin was one of the first to demand that the FAI play these games. Ireland is a part of the International Criminal Court and as such should not be engaging in sportswashing genocide. We are failing in our moral, humanitarian and legal obligations as a country in playing these games.

Garda threatens 12 months in jail for peaceful pro-Palestine protest

In footage seen by the Canary, a Garda inspector tells protestors they are committing criminal trespass, on the absurd basis the peaceful protest was “putting people in fear”. Trespass is ordinarily a civil matter in which the police do not intervene. One quick-witted activist replies:

I’m in fear, I’ve got 20 guards stood around me.

The inspector goes on to threaten those present with a ridiculous €1000 fine and 12 months imprisonment, alongside punishment for “failure to comply with a direction”. He suggests the latter could warrant a six month prison term and a €500 penalty. Garda goons eventually manhandled the protestors from the premises.

The Stop The Game effort began with awareness raising and less bold, conventional protests. However, it has escalated its efforts as the Irish government and FAI have doubled-down on proceeding with the potentially illegal Nations League games.

Protesters have disrupted an Ireland vs Qatar match with tennis balls, temporarily halting play. They have ensured FAI officials have to face the consequences of their despicable conniving, by confronting FAI president Paul Cooke as he left a meeting in which the governing body voted to fulfil the matches. They have even got on top of the FAI HQ, saying they:

… will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to ensure no sport with gen0cidal baby-slaughterers.

Irish state intervenes in sport when it’s convenient

The activists have now taken their efforts to the government department that pumps millions of euros into FAI coffers. RTÉ quote a Department of Sport spokeswoman who said:

It is important to note that National Governing Bodies of sport, such as the FAI, are independent, autonomous bodies responsible for the governance of their own sports, including the organisation of sporting fixtures, whether in domestic or international competitions.

The Government and Sport Ireland have no role in the organisation of such fixtures.

In reality the government has previously been happy to intervene when it suited the state to do so. Most relevantly, Bertie Ahern’s government intervened in 1999 to deny entry visas for players from what was then Yugoslavia, because of atrocities being carried out by the nation’s government.

That was a rather easier decision politically, knowing the US hegemon and most Western powers backed the destruction of Slobodan Milošević’s regime. The state also intervened in FAI affairs during a governance crisis at the sporting body in 2019.

Yet now Micheál Martin’s Zionist mob refuses to intervene in the most morally straightforward case imaginable – whether to play a football match against the world’s most lawless entity, so-called ‘Israel’.

Undeterred, the Stop the Game heroes will host a media event on Thursday July 30 to rally an already supportive public further around their efforts. Present will be Margaret Connolly, sister of Irish president Catherine. Margaret was among those on board the Global Sumud Flotilla earlier this year. Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) kidnapped, raped and tortured the activists, and prevented them from reaching Gaza.

Joining Connolly will be former Ireland rugby and British and Irish Lions scrum half John Robbie. Stop the Game say in 1981 Robbie:

…toured apartheid South Africa with the Ireland rugby team, a decision he deeply regrets.

He is expected to:

…directly address the Irish football team as someone who knows what it is like to take the field against his conscience.

For now it is in the hands of the craven FAI and the criminal US bootlicker Micheál Martin to cease this historic humiliation. Ultimately, however, it may fall to the players to ensure they don’t follow John Robbie, and be haunted for the rest of their lives by a decision to sportwash genocide.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

Source link