Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors want TV Time

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Wednesday March 19, 2008 09:59 by Mr Pipe from Yorkshire

lobby Group wants murder and sex cases televised.

News coming from the Meath conference of AGSI says that the Gardai want murder trial televised for
General Public viewing, supposedly that would up the clothing allowances of the judge's bench and provide
a cannon fodder of violent and disturbing viewing for the General Public.

Maybe they will provide interactive buttons for people to get involved in the legal process.

The risible reason for this suggestion is to show 'us' the great people and public viewers what Gardai
must suffer in the courts. They seem well enough appraised of the rights of the individual and one
of those is the presumption of innocence.

gardai people

RTE would have the advertising budget and dibs on broadcasting rights, so would ensure excellent coverage
for people, indeed the report was released on RTE main evening news last night.

They , however, seem a bit woolly on rights and innocence.

I feel like setting up a poll:

'are the Gardai right to seek to abuse rights of presumption of innocence through lobbying for
murder trials to be broadcast to the general public as part of their propaganda war on criminality?

The upshot of course of this is that certain dictatorial types such as Arroyo in the Phillipines
allowed for real time filming and dissemination of a prison riot in which people died to 'normalise'
state violences for general viewing.

Or we could look at how a diet of crime based reality TV distracts the great American Public from the
criminality of it's leaders who have made illegal war and murder part of the tv diet of a generation
of children.

The courts do their job, I am opposed to the use of visual propaganda as a methodology of normalisation
of violent and extreme behaviour. The State would be better served sorting out the prisons where the EU
Convention on Torture Committee has criticised Irish Justice practices.

The photo is from this report:

(http://www.indymedia.ie/article/52959)

Arroyo:- http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81189
Portlaoise:- http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86216
EU:-http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84587