Tomás Ó Flatharta

The Life and Death of Yves Sakila

Shamim Malekmian reports for the Dublin Inquirer.

It reminded him of George Floyd, pinned to the ground and dying under the knee of a cop on the streets of Minneapolis, said Jude Hughes, a Black Irish community activist.

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“It’s literally George Floyd on the streets of Dublin. I can’t believe that scene and that guy with his knee on his neck,” he said, in a Zoom meeting on Monday night.

The emergency meeting was organised by the Africa Centre for Black people across the country to come together and process their feelings about what had happened on Friday – and strategise on how to respond. 

More than 100 people had joined.

On Friday, Yves Sakila was pinned to the ground on Henry Street by a few men, a video circulated on social media showed. 

At one point, one of them, an older man in a black suit, throws himself onto his neck and pushes down with his right knee.

A few seconds later, he removes his knee, but keeps pressing on his neck with his hands. Someone else is pinning his head to the ground. Other men press on his body.

You can hear Sakila grunting and moaning amidst the chatter of the passersby.

By the end of it, he seemed unconscious. He was later pronounced dead.