A change in advertising in west Belfast

Recruitment posters for the British Army cadets which have appeared on Belfast’s Falls Road have been taken down.

Speaking as posters were being removed by local republicans, Aindriú Mac Ruaidhrí of Lasair Dhearg recalled the massacres perpetrated by the British Army in the area.

He said, “This is the same force that run amok on these very streets, shooting indiscriminately and killing innocents as it sought to subjugate our people.

“A so-called ‘peace’ has allowed this organisation and others like the PSNI, to attempt to recruit in these areas whilst also holding back justice for those that they shot, killed and maimed.”

Mac Ruaidhrí said Lasair Dhearg would continue to remove this material if it continues to appear.

“If you see recruitment posters or other material like this. Do your community a favour and take it down,” he said.

The group has also been ‘updating’ advertising for the PSNI and its C3 Intelligence Branch, formerly Special Branch, whose involvement in collusion killings has been fully exposed recently.

C3’s responsibilities continue to include intelligence gathering by undercover agents, the infiltration of political organisations for the aim of disruption and gathering intelligence, and the recruitment and running of informers, including children.

Lasair Dhearg said that the PSNI’s ‘Tactical Support Groups’ (TSG) also continue to work towards the disruption of nationalist and republican organisations in tandem with C3.

The TSG are trained in specialist tactics, include search, methods of entry, ‘counter terrorism’ and surveillance, using Stop and Search legislation to detain and harass political and community activists.

“These two agencies, C3 and the TSG, provide the basis of a re-branded RUC Special Branch,” it said. “They use the same tactics and methods as the Special Branch, and for the same purpose.”

The organisation remains almost 80% Protestant from a population that is almost 50% Catholic, “not that it would matter anyway”.

“Little wonder then that, employing the same modus operandi, the same political direction and indeed the same workforce, we have the same outcomes. C3 Intelligence Branch is, for all intents and purposes, RUC Special Branch. This is just one reason why you shouldn’t join the PSNI.”

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