SF: Threats won't stop policing protest

Sinn Féin activists will engage in a “peaceful and dignified” protest against new policing arrangements when a local board meets in Strabane tomorrow, its chairman Mitchel McLaughlin insisted today.

Following a spate of death threats and attacks on catholic members of the district policing partnerships, Mr McLaughlin said there was “no question” that the party would call off a protest scheduled for tomorrow night.

The former Foyle MLA also insisted that dissident hard-line republicans were behind the threats.

“It will be a very peaceful, dignified, legitimate and reasonable protest,” he said.

“That I think will do away with all the spurious propaganda about Sinn Féin in some way as a result of its disagreement on policing being responsible for the violent actions of people who are more opposed to us than they are to unionists, who are more opposed to us than they are to the British.

“We have no responsibility for their stupidity and we appeal to them to get into the programme, to get behind the peace process and abandon their actions.”

Sinn Féin leaders have angrily denied claims that mainstream republicans were behind the threats against members of the district policing partnership in Cookstown in County Tyrone.

The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland Hugh Orde claimed members of the Provisional IRA were involved in the Cookstown threats.

However, the Real IRA, the dissident organisation behind the Omagh bomb, has been blamed for other threats which have resulted in the resignation of three DPP members across the North.

The deputy chairman of the Policing Board for all of Northern Ireland Denis Bradley has also been threatened and has compared the intimidation to that of a bully.

Nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan has called on the Provisional IRA to issue a statement denying it has sanctioned any of the threats.

Sinn Féin, unlike the SDLP, has refused to endorse the new police service and take its seats on the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the local district partnerships.

Mr McLaughlin insisted that the party is focused on getting policing right.

“We will continue to push in a legitimate and peaceful way and continue to negotiate until we get the outstanding problems on policing resolved,” the Sinn Féin chairman said.

“When we get that we will not shirk in our responsibility. If you want an explanation why there are protests of a peaceful nature such as those Sinn Féin is involved in and of a violent nature that the dissidents are involved in, there is a better explanation if people would reflect and whether we got policing right in the first place or not.”