Republican News · Thursday 25 April 2002

Dungannon arrest part of ongoing PSNI/RUC campaign

Sinn Féin Mayor of Dungannon, Francie Molloy, said the arrest of a senior republican in Dungannon last weekend forms part of a PSNI/RUC campaign to victimise and demonise nationalists and republicans.

"In recent months we have seen the re-emergence of a very clear securocrat agenda to create confusion and doubt around the future of the RUC/PSNI and in particular the 'force within a force' that is the Special Branch," he said. "It is classic black propaganda.

"The political interference of the RUC/PSNI is nothing new. It highlights the many concerns Sinn Féin has with the current status of policing in the Six Counties and indeed the long road we need to travel before we have a genuine new beginning in the creation of a new policing service free from partisan political control."

Michelle Gildernew, MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, has also spoken out about the level of Crown forces harassment in the Dungannon area, including complaints of a recent doubling of army foot patrols and checkpoints. "There have been a number of British Army foot patrols in the local housing estates with 25 or more soldiers, which is totally over the top," she said. Pointing out the concern of the nationalist community given the record of harrassment and collusion with loyalist death squads, she questioned the British government's commitment to the peace process. "Nationalists have yet to experience any real or meaningful peace dividend," she said. "We are into our eighth year of peace process and so far the only evidence of demilitarisation has been purely cosmetic."