Irish Republican News · November 24, 2003

PSNI criticised over policing decisions

The Derry-based human rights centre, the Pat Finucane Centre, has questionied why extra police were drafted in for today's Assembly elections and not directed to protecting nationalists against sectarian attack.

The PSNI police has claimed the extra numbers were needed because of a so-called threat of violence from dissident republicans. However one man has died and another lost an eye in loyalist attacks in the past ten days.

``Entitled Loyalist Violence and the Election? What Loyalist Violence?'', the statement points out that a catalog of attacks by loyalists has received no response from unionist politicians, who put the focus on dissident republicans.

In a typical sectarian attack, a number of Catholics were beaten with baseball bats in north Belfast at the weekend.

Sinn Fein councillor for the area Margaret McClenaghen said the incident took place on the Crumlin Road on Saturday night. She called for nationalists to be vigilant in the wake of the incident.

However, last night the PSNI claimed they had no record of any incident.

``In the past number of days we have witnessed the attempted murder of three people and the murder of two people by loyalist paramilitaries,'' Ms McClenaghen said.

``The silence coming from within the leaderships of unionism has been deafening.

``In this latest attack a young woman has been seriously injured when a number of people were beaten with baseball bats by a gang of loyalists on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast.

``(It came) 24 hours after a man from west Belfast was picked up by loyalists as he left the RVH (Royal Victoria Hospital) and left for dead in Ballysillan, and a couple of days after the tragic murder of a man in Lisburn.''

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