Republican News · Thursday 4 April 2002

Nationalists urged to resign from Police Board

Derry Sinn Féin policing spokesperson, Councillor Paul Fleming, has called on all nationalist members of the Policing Board to resign or risk losing all respect within the nationalist community.

"Another week has passed and yet again we have seen clearly that the Police Board is powerless to hold the PSNI to account," he said.

"Politically motivated raids in Derry and Belfast and the beating of nationalist residents in Belfast are the latest evidence that the PSNI is not the new beginning to policing; they are just a repackaged, renamed RUC.

'It is beyond belief that the SDLP members of the Policing Board, and other nationalists, who lent their support to this flawed body, can endure much more humiliation.

"Hardly a week goes past without further proof, as if it were needed, that the PSNI is incapable of securing the confidence of the nationalist community. Personally I find it incredible that despite all the available evidence seemingly intelligent people are unable to recognise that they are being used to cloak an unreconstructed RUC with a veneer of respectability.

"It is clear that their continued membership of this flawed Board is not bringing about change, but actually retarding the new beginning to policing that is so necessary. If they do not want to lose all credibility within our community, they should leave now."