Rave Off

THE RECENT questioning and searching of numerous rave-goers on their way to a Harvest Fair Festival near Portarlington has ignited a debate about the increasingly far-reaching powers of the Gardam with regard to civil liberties.
Hot Press spoke to three of the people detained on the night of Saturday 20th September, who told how their car was stopped and they were escorted to a nearby carpark, before being taken into St Bridget?s Community Centre.
?When we were taken out of the car,? says one of them, ?it wasn?t really made clear what was happening, although one of the Gardam did mention the Misuse Of Drugs Acts. It was straight into the hall for a stripsearch, down to our underwear. They found nothing on any of us.?
The female partygoers were apparently sequestered in a separate room, presumably to be searched as well. Witnesses claim that the Gardam present were extremely vague when asked what offences the rave-goers were being held for. ?They were uncertain of the value of what they were doing,? says one. ?They even admitted that the legislation against marijuana was an inconvenience to any community dimension they wished to have.?
Another commented: ?One girl walked up to us in a state of semi-shock, almost crying, going ?What am I gonna do? They?ve taken away my boyfriend and my friend . . .? And then she just drifted off.?
However, the people held did also point out to Hot Press that the conduct of the Gardam present was fairly ?courteous?, with nothing in the way of verbal abuse or heavy-handedness being reported.
The forcible breaking-up of the rave event was only partially successful; a truncated version of the intended festival took place that night, with about 250 people present, who had arrived before the police roadblock on the Portarlington road was set up at midnight.
The bust of the event is being seen as the latest episode in a long-running battle between the Gardam and the organisers of large-scale dance events in rural areas, with the stand-off resulting in a vast number of festivals and suchlike being abruptly cancelled.
As one raver commented: ?What is happening, is that on a pan-European basis over the past eight years, security legislation ? and Ireland has one of the least oppressive versions ? has come in, and to test the legal precedent of it, they use it on extreme right-wing groups and extreme left-wing groups. Now they?re putting it into practice here.
?Anyone who attends these kind of events should go to their local residents? association and describe what?s going on. It?s not being seen as the threat that it is to the constitution.?