Youth demand plastic bullet ban
Over 400 young people attended a protest at Belfast City Hall on
Wednesday calling for the immediate banning of plastic bullets.
The protest was called by Sinn Fein Youth in response to the
alarming number of young nationalist who have been injured in
recent weeks.
Among those at the rally was Rosaleen Walsh, whose daughter Maíre
was hit in the jaw with a plastic bullet on Sunday 6 July. The
mother of Short Strand teenager Chris Doherty, whose jaw was
broken by a baton round on the same night, was also there, as was
Janet Donnelly, cousin of Gary Lawlor, who spent over a week in a
coma after being hit on the head with a plastic bullet in
Lenadoon, also on 6 July.
Speaking to the protesters, anti-plastic bullet campaigner Brenda
Downes called for an immediate banning of ``lethal plastic bullets
which since their introduction have killed, injured and maimed
innocent men, women and children''.
Rosaleen Walsh spoke of her disgust at the RUC who ``deliberately
went out of their way to harm my 13 year old daughter''. She asked
``how can I teach my children to respect the RUC when the RUC have
no respect for my children?''
Janet Donnelly spoke of Gary Lawlor's parents' pain while their
son was in hospital. ``For days he lay in a coma fighting for his
life; only a child and nearly murdered by the RUC'', she said.
Speaking on behalf of Sinn Fein Youth, Eoin O'Broin called for
the ``immediate banning of plastic bullets and the disbandment of
the RUC''. He said that ``most of those injured during the past two
weeks were not in riot situations and sustained injuries that
indicated that the RUC contravened guidelines for the use of
`baton rounds'. Is it any wonder that the nationalist community
has no confidence in the RUC?''
Gerry Adams in a statement described the so-called new guidelines
on the use of plastic bullets published by the British government
on Tuesday 15 July as ``not worth the paper they are printed on''.
``The RUC and British Army regularly, and with impunity, breach
their own guidelines and have done so for two decades. There is
only one answer to the issue of plastic bullets and that is to
introduce an immediate ban''.
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