RSF denounce Fermanagh arrest operation

Republican Sinn Féin has accused the PSNI police of “abducting” three republicans in County Fermanagh.

The three were arrested during separate early morning raids, including an Ard-Chomhairle member of Republican Sinn Féin and a former indepedent councillor, Tony McPhillips.

They were taken to the Interrogation Centre at Antrim RUC Barracks.

Two of those arrested had previously been subjected to malicious prosecution, and the other has a case pending against the RUC for wrongful arrest and detention.

Mobile telephones and computers were taken from the properties, as well as compact discs and cassette tapes.

A daughter of one of the arrested men entered a house asking “Daddy, Daddy, where are you?” and was told he had been taken to Antrim.

As she left the house, another PSNI man mimicked her asking the question and said that had her father been an upstanding member of the community, they would not have been raiding the premises. The PSNI then went on to claim that her father had been involved in a landmine attack near Roslea.

RSF Director of Publicity, Richard Walsh said it was the PSNI who were “lashing out like cornered animals”, and not republicans, as PSNI Chief Hugh Orde recently claimed.

He said the men had been organising a commemoration in Swanlinbar, County Cavan this weekend.

“We would encourage uncompromised Republicans in these counties and from further afield to attend this commemoration and show that they will not be intimidated from the path of true Republicanism. The actions of the RUC will not hinder the growth of the Republican Movement.

“We also condemn the outrageous comments made by RUC personnel to the daughter of one of those seized which were clearly designed to cause distress. Furthermore, they are prejudicial to any inquiries they claim to be conducting at this time.

“Republican Sinn Féin calls on the people of Ireland to join the Republican Movement and work to secure the expulsion of the British invader from our shores.”

HARASSMENT

Meanwhile, the chairperson of a new RSF cumann in east Tyrone has said he and his family were subjected to harassment and intimidation by the PSNI at Belfast’s Aldergrove Airport this week.

On the Twelfth of July, as he was travelling with his family on holiday, Aodhan O Cuinn was asked to enter a side room, where members of British military intelligence were waiting for him.

After rejecting their attempts to recruit him as an informer -- which he said was just the latest in a series of such recruitment bids -- he learned that all the bags had been searched and that his mother and father had been publicly questioned by the PSNI and MI5.

His parents were asked what it felt like to raise a terrorist and did they not know they would be sending their son home in a body bag.

Mr O Cuinn condemned the harassment aimed at him and his family. He said: “I have come to expect this lowlife behaviour from the Crown Forces, the fact I am constantly harassed makes me know I am doing my job as an Irish Republican, it makes me stronger and more determined”.

Urgent Appeal