Sinéad Ní Bhroin can't help laughing in disbelief as she recalls receiving a phone call to say adverts for the Irish Anti-War Movement's fund-raising concert would be dropped from the airwaves. Carl O'Brien reports
"This was an event to build up momentum for a peaceful, stewarded protest against George Bush's visit to Ireland, something which represents the opinions of the vast majority of people," says an incredulous Ní Bhroin, who is secretary of the movement.
"The broadcasting regulator said the advert was political. But where do you stop then? Live Aid is political. Trócaire's fund-raising could be read as political. Everything is political. They effectively sabotaged the event. This is censorship and abuse of our civil liberties. Everyone was a bit freaked out by it."
The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland's (BCI) decision was its second controversial intervention in a matter of days, resulting in the scrapping of radio adverts or news reports deemed to be too political.
Amid dark mutterings by the Labour Party of "desperate and sinister" interpretation of broadcasting rules, the commission last week forced radio stations to drop news coverage criticising the Government decentralisation plans after complaints from Fianna Fáil. And with the Government eager to keep protesters away from President Bush's visit to Shannon next week, anti-war activists were quick to brand the BCI's latest decision as evidence of a "systematic campaign of Government censorship".
In contrast to the emotive rhetoric surrounding the broadcasting regulator's interventions, the 1988 Radio and Television Act states dryly that "no advertisement shall be broadcast which is directed towards any religious or political end or which has any relation to an industrial dispute". However, a decade after the repeal of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, which prohibited the airing of interviews with members of proscribed organisations, some have begun to ask whether overzealous interpretation of the 1988 Act means a new version of the broadcasting ban is beginning to emerge.
Michael Foley, lecturer and course leader in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology, says the latest BCI intervention seems "bizarre" and "unnecessary".
"I don't know why it has been so accommodating of Government. I think the anti-war ruling was bizarre in the extreme. This wasn't even a demonstration, it was a concert. These people weren't going to be on the streets. There was no public order issue." He says the BCI's responsibility should be to regulate with as light a touch as possible rather than anticipating the Government or judiciary's interpretation of the legislation.
"I think the BCI is falling into the same trap as RTÉ did years ago with Section 31. They fear political interference, so they try to pre-empt it. In the end, one court did rule that RTÉ had interpreted Section 31 too strictly. I'd have thought they'd have learned from that."
The BCI, however "absolutely" rejects any suggestion of political interference and insists the legislation is clear and unambiguous. A spokeswoman says that in the case of the anti-war movement's concert, it was contacted by NewsTalk 106 about the content of the adverts. BCI executives decided the adverts flouted broadcasting laws as the group was politically affiliated and the aims of the concert were political.
Whatever about correct interpretation of the law, the National Union of Journalists and media commentators say such "heavy-handed" actions would, ironically, never take place in countries such as the US. "I couldn't see this happening in America," says Foley. "They would know that, because of the first amendment, the people whose ad was being dropped would walk straight into a court and probably win." Meanwhile, the anti-war concert, billed as "When Bush Comes To Shove", featuring Christy Moore and Damien Rice among others, has since been transferred from the Point to the smaller venue of Vicar Street.
In an astute piece of publicity-stoking by the anti-war movement, tonight's concert is already sold out and tickets are selling well for the second concert, tomorrow night. While it might not raise the funds it had hoped for, the anti-war movement is eager to press ahead with a planned march to Shannon for the Bush visit. However, anti-war protesters say the dropping of their radio adverts is just one worrying sign of an increasingly "totalitarian" approach to free speech.
New litter laws prohibiting the distribution of leaflets and placement of posters have stopped them getting their message out, they say, while gardaí are increasingly taking a tougher line against protest gatherings in public places.
"The public should be very worried about the lengths this Government is willing to go to silence opposition," says Richard Boyd Barrett, chairman of the Irish Anti-War Movement. "They are trampling on basic civil liberties and democratic rights."
For Christy Moore, a veteran of protest concerts over the last three decades, including Ronald Reagan's 1984 visit, things have also changed for the worse.
"The whole world was different back then [during the Ronald Reagan visit]," he told RTÉ this week. "In those days you got bad vibes from the Branch if you were anti-Reagan. The forces against this gig seem to be a lot more subtle and underhand. I don't know if people are aware of what's going on."