Demonstrations to oppose new PSNI recruitment campaign

A recruitment drive by the PSNI has been hit by republican protests and security alerts at locations across the North.

Belfast Metropolitan College at Millfield, near Belfast city centre, and its Titanic Quarter campus were sealed off, as were locations in Omagh and Derry.

The event at the Waterfoot Hotel in Derry had been cancelled after a protest was announced by the Republican Network for Unity (RNU). Events at the other venues are going ahead, as are the protest.

The Anti-Internment League (AIL) has said it is holding a demonstration outside Belfast Metropolitan College’s campus and Strule Arts Centre in Omagh today.

AIL spokesman Aidan Ferguson said the protest has been organised to oppose British control of policing in the north of Ireland.

“It has been proved that this police force is unaccountable and being directed by MI5,” he claimed.

“We are asking young people not to get involved in this.”

The RNU said the cancellation of the Derry event is “a victory for all that suffer the heavy hand of British justice in the Six Counties” and encouraged its supporters to join the protest at Belfast Metropolitican College from noon today.

“This attempt to recruit young students into a political police force should be opposed by parents, lecturers and of course the students themselves,” they said.

“Attend and let those who raid our homes, use child informers and routinely harass political activists and their families know that their force is unwanted in our educational hubs.”

A group called ‘Loyal People’s Protest’ has said it intends to hold a counter-protest outside Belfast Metropolitan College.

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