PSNI harassment seen as threatening and coervice

Republican Sinn Fein has said its members and their families are “under attack from the colonial police of British rule” after another series of harassment incidents.

In Tyrone, their members have counted over seventy stop and searches in the last eight weeks. They have said their homes are under constant surveillance, have been raided, and one man even walk down the street without being stopped, held up and searched. A visible PSNI presence is outside their homes, sometimes all night.

This week the party was targeted in Lurgan, North Armagh.

“The British raided a number of homes, including the home of RSF members. Areas surrounding Drumbeg were searched as the area was swamped by RUC/PSNI landrovers and the TSG, nothing was found,” they said.

“For a period the Helicopter was hovering over Craigavon, nothing unusual here only discriminate intimidation of an entire community. The People have had enough, but will not be broken. History teaches that and born a great resolve in the Irish spirit.”

After the home of one RSF member was damaged in an unusual attack, the party says it suspects collusion due to the fact that the usual police presence was nowhere to be seen until after the attack. They urged that all instances of suspect behaviour “from this unaccountable police force” be passed onto local republican activists.

They said the “possibility of having your door kicked in and your belongings ransacked or taken away” is a daily reality for many republicans across the Six Counties.

“In ever increasing acts of intimidation it is them and the wider communities of revolutionary activists who suffer this reality of ongoing British rule.”

CHILDREN HARASSED

Separately, a west Belfast republican has complained to the Police Ombudsman after the PSNI searched his 15-year-old daughter’s bag as she made her way to school.

Former political prisoner Risteard O Murchu hit out after his teenage daughter and 12-year-old son were involved in a stop and search operation as he left them to school last week.

Mr O Murchu, a member of Saoradh, said he has been stopped and searched up to ten times in the past month.

During one incident last week a PSNI patrol was filmed searching the girl’s schoolbag at a west Belfast roadside after her father was stopped as he drove her to school. Footage of the incident was later posted on social media. Mr O Murchu also said that during a recent stop and search near Colaiste Feirste, where his son is a pupil, a teacher had to escort the child into the school grounds after he was held by police .

O Murchu said that while he is used to being stopped, he believes his children should not be targeted.

“I feel they are trying to pressurise the family in a way of getting at me,” he said.

Urgent Appeal