| 29 charged after eu enlargement protest in dublin Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040502110125.pzx2yeo9http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040502110125.pzx2yeo9
Twenty-nine charged after EU enlargement protest in Dublin
02 May 2004 ATTENTION -with Ahern quotes /// Twenty-nine people were charged with public order offences after May Day protests in Dublin during EU leaders' celebrations of the bloc's historic "big bang" enlargement, police said on Sunday.
For the first time in Ireland, the Garda national police turned water cannon on the front lines of a march by about 700 protestors late Saturday.
One policewoman was treated in hospital after she was hit on the head by a flying bottle.
Police had no reports of injuries to the protestors who had marched from the city centre and attempted to gain access to Dublin's huge Phoenix Park via Ashtown Gate, one of the side-entrances.
The showdown with massed ranks of riot police came as leaders of what is now the 25-nation European Union were attending a dinner hosted by Irish President Mary McAleese and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.
Ireland was at centre stage for Saturday's enlargement because it holds the bloc's six-month rotating presidency until the end of June.
The 1,762-acre (712-hectare) park, the biggest enclosed urban greenspace in Europe, had been sealed off since Friday and the EU leaders were being entertained at Farmleigh state guest house -- well inside the park.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Ahern blamed the confrontation on "a small band of deliberate troublemakers trying to mar a wonderful day," and praised the Garda for the way it handle it.
Police told AFP on Sunday that 19 of the 29 who appeared at a special night court sitting in Dublin's Cloverhill Prison had been remanded in custody.
Most of those arrested were Irish, but two Britons, an American and a Swiss national were also charged. There were 25 men and four women before the court.
"They pretty well spanned the globe, even if most of them were Irish," said Ahern, who held talks Sunday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Northern Ireland.
Saturday's march on Phoenix Park had been organised by an umbrella group, Dublin Grassroots Network, which earlier staged a series of peaceful anti-capitalist demonstrations around Dublin city centre.
When police stopped the march at a roundabout near Ashtown Gate, bottles and stones were thrown by a small group of the protestors at the head of march. Several of the mainly young protestors confronting police were masked.
Unarmed police at the front of the security cordon were replaced by the force's riot squad, and water cannon borrowed from police in Northern Ireland gave the rioters repeated soakings.
Later in the evening, a small group of protestors returned to the city centre. Police said there had been no further incidents.
Text and Picture Copyright © 2004 AFP.
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