Activism:

MEP Assaults Activists, Media Reports Opposite In Giant Smear Attempt Police made no arrests, but press skews incident to smear anti-EU protesters

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Monday, April 21, 2008 |

During an attempt to assault activists who asked him a question in Dublin, a European MEP tripped and fell on his face and the entire incident was caught on camera, but that didn't stop the media from reporting that an "anti-EU gang" of thugs had screamed abuse and assaulted Proinsias de Rossa - in a crass attempt to smear opposition to the European Union. The video shows de Rossa being approached slowly by the cameraman and another We Are Change Ireland activist who asks, "Why did you do it?" to which de Rossa responds, "When are you going to grow up?" Earlier, de Rossa had called for Irish citizens to support the sovereignty-stripping EU Lisbon Treaty, which is a re-packaged version of the European Constitution that was already summarily rejected by voters upon introduction. The two begin walking down the street and de Rossa is the first to physically put his arm on the activist as he moves him out of the way to cross the street. De Rossa then lunges for another cameraman behind him and then begins running towards him. De Rossa clearly then appears to trip and fall to the ground as he reaches out for the cameraman. We Are Change Ireland flagged down a police van themselves to report the incident and, even as media reports are forced to admit, after questioning eyewitnesses, the police made no arrests. If anyone should have been arrested for assault it was de Rossa himself. Watch the video. Bearing in mind what actually happened as seen on the video, look at how the media reported the incident. Under the headline Anti-EU gang assaults Irish MEP, the BBC reported, "Irish former minister Proinsias de Rossa was knocked to the ground after a public meeting in Dublin on Monday night, according to the Labour Party." The Labour Party being bastions of honesty, of course. "Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the MEP was confronted by a group of men who screamed abuse at him before knocking him over and pinning him down," added the report. Watch the video again. Who exactly knocks de Rossa to the ground? The invisible man? It is clearly de Rossa's out of control temper and his shock at the audacity of citizens asking questions of a politician that led to him falling flat on his face. The Belfast Telegraph went a step further, claiming de Rossa had been "attacked". Again - police investigated the incident and interviewed eyewitnesses before making no arrests, proving that no "assault" or "attack" on de Rossa ever took place. No crime had been committed. The Associated Press seized on the purported "assault" to smear anti-EU groups. "The episode highlighted hostility in Ireland's hard left to the European Union, which requires a "yes" vote from Ireland for the treaty, the product of several years' negotiations, to become law," according to the report. Again this reflects a fundamental ignorance of the fact that We Are Change Ireland were born out of the 9/11 Truth Movement, which revolves around the central issue of the 9/11 attacks, and not any prescribed political partisanship. Why were the media so keen to perpetuate such a giant fraud and smear the activists as violent thugs while exalting the pro-EU MEP as an innocent victim? Because a "no" vote in Ireland, the only EU member nation to allow a referendum on the issue, would signal the death knell for the Lisbon Treaty, and the press - especially the BBC who routinely propagandize for the expansion of the EU and have received over £141 million in loans and grants from Brussels - have to engage in dirty tricks and smear campaigns to try and reverse public opinion which has always been anti-European Union.