Minister of Justice feels the heat at CFE protest in UCD - 14/11/02

Below is a report of the demo by Paul Murphy (member of CFE)

Around 20 students joined a CFE protest at around 7.30pm this evening, at a Lawsoc debate, at which the Minister of Justice, McDowell, was present. We confronted the Minister and tried to blockade his access to our college, just as his government is trying to deny access to third level education to hundreds of thousands of ordinary young people across Ireland.

He managed to enter the debate, but only after two or three minutes of a scrum, where 7 members of the Gardaí along with three or four members of Services managed to shove us out of the way, and get in. The police tactics were fairly violent with a lot of people being violently shoved out of the way, and dragged out of the Minister's path. There were also allegations of Garda Officers punching protesters.

Members of Global Action were also present protesting against the deportation of Christina Onswanwa.

The fact that 20 students turned up with no building for the demonstration, because we wanted to keep it quiet so that Lawsoc wouldn't get wind of it, proves the depth of anger on the issue. The fact that the Gardai felt it necessary to bring 7 Gardai along for just 20 of us also proves that CFE's militancy has not gone unnoticed by the State. The next stage is to organise militant action of thousands of ordinary students. We have called for a boycott on Wed. 20th November in UCD, from 11am. Everyone opposed to paying  €4-5,000 for going to college should not only boycott lectures, assemble in front of the Arts Block at 11am, but should help build for the demo. Get in touch if anyone's interested.