RNU Slam Political Policing

By AM Saturday, May 3, 2014

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Over the last few days the age-old issue of Political Policing has once again raised it’s ugly head on the world stage. News of the arrest of Sinn Fein Leader, Gerry Adams has spread far and wide via various news outlets and social media sites. This prompted his Party to release a number of statements in which they claimed the arrest was ‘Political Motivated’, even Martin McGuinness spoke out against the PSNI insisting that it was ‘Dark Forces, opposed to the so-called Peace Process’ who had ordered and carried out the arrest of Adams.

Political Policing is an issue which anti-GFA republicans have been campaigning against for the best part of 16 years. We have consistently challenged the political nature of an unreformed and irreformable police force. Today – as in the past – the British State through this police force regularly circumvents its own laws, regulations and self-proclaimed standards to put Republican Activists behind bars.

While republicans are being hounded, arrested, charged and remanded for historical cases, the British puppet Thersea Villiers this week confirmed the Parachute Regiment had impunity prior to embarking on bloody massacres like those in Ballymurphy and Derry on Bloody Sunday. This proves that there’s a two tier justice system at play when dealing with historical cases.

In recent years, we have seen a conveyor belt of internment set in motion, wherein the RUC/PSNI – often using dubious intelligence provided by the British military – have relied on the corrupt nature of the DPP and British Courts in order to remand republicans, confident that a compliant media will turn a blind eye.

Many within the political establishment in the Six Counties have invested a great deal of time, energy and propaganda in creating the illusion of a reformed Police Force.

However, those who the RUC/PSNI act on behalf of – the secret Security Service, MI5 – implicated in past abuses – has not been so reformed and has been put in charge of a highly important area of mainstream policing. MI5 has primacy in covert ‘National Security’ policing and has embedded its agenda in the daily decisions of the PSNI.

Since primacy in ‘National Security’ policing was given to MI5 in 2007, there has been a growing “accountability gap” over a large part of policing. The legal oversight of MI5 is plainly inadequate and local mechanisms that claim to hold Political Policing to account are evaded by MI5. This situation falls woefully short of international standards.

Therefore, the political nature of the RUC/PSNI comes from MI5’s direct involvement in policing and justice, coupled with the revolving door policy for ex-RUC officers to slide their way back into the force. The Six County police force is obliged to carry out operations, arrests, searches and interrogations dictated at the behest of Whitehall.

Unfortunately, those in the Dublin and Stormont political establishments have thrown their weight behind the RUC/PSNI, whilst turning a blind eye to increased collusion with MI5, British Military and the ‘National’ Crime Agency (NCA). The two Constitutional Nationalist Parties have had no shame in bringing this style of policing into Working-Class Communities, where the unreformed RUC have harassed and abused Irish citizens, while at the same time attempting to recruit children into their ranks.

Republican Network for Unity (RNU) Belfast Candidates Tommy Doherty and Sammy Cusick in the upcoming Council Elections commented:

We have heard shout’s of Political Policing over the past two days from those in Sinn Fein, the same party who spoon feed the RUC/PSNI and MI5 into our communities, with claims that the PSNI are ‘the only show in town’.

Republican Activists who oppose the Status Quo are subject to Political Policing on a daily basis. The RUC/PSNI stop, search, raid homes, arrest, assault and intern activists, yet there is a deafening silence from Sinn Fein.

They are part of the problem, they have unashamedly acted as cheerleaders for the British Militia when they were assaulting, harassing and interning republicans. Why would any right thinking person want to be part of this corrupt system?

However, we refuse to be selective when speaking out against the political nature of policing in the North which is inextricably linked with the occupation of the Six Counties. Republicans are out to expose and smash political policing each and every time the opportunity warrants it.

Irish Republicans are determined and consistent in our opposition to Political Policing, not selective as others have demonstrated when it does not suit their political agenda.

RNU will continue to oppose Political Policing, Special Courts, Internment by Remand and all the other trappings of Imperialist occupation in Ireland. We call on everyone concerned with human rights and civil liberties to work together to oppose the PSNI and their MI5 Masters in Whitehall or Hollywood.