Republican News · Thursday 17 October 2002

UN Committee Calls for Plastic Bullet ban

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on the British government to ban plastic bullets as a method of riot control in the North.

The call is contained in the Concluding Observations of the Committee, meeting in its 31st session to consider reports submitted by state parties under article 44 of the convention.

In a further significant move the Committee also expressed concern at the effects of emergency legislation on children.

McBride killers to be moved

Mark Wright and James Fisher, the two British soldiers convicted of the 1992 murder of 18-year-old Peter McBride in Belfast, are due to be moved from their present posting at the Oxford Barracks in Muenster in Germany. The two were seconded to the Irish Guards Regiment and this regiment is set to receive a new posting in the coming weeks. Earlier this year, a member of the PFC travelled to Germany to raise the case with elected representatives, trade unionists and media in the northern German city. The presence of the two on German soil has been raised in the German parliament and the MP for the area has expressed his grave concerns in correspondence with the British Embassy and the British Army.

Solicitors for Jean McBride are awaiting a date for a new hearing in the continuing legal battle to have the two convicted murderers dismissed from the British Army. The decision of the second Army Board will then be appealed.