When the flag protests were in full swing, the PSNI/RUC facilitated marches past the Short Strand on a weekly basis. Although these marches were illegal, it tried to justify them on the basis that its strategy was attempting to defuse situations. Their own Supreme Court found that it had a duty to prevent these unlawful parades. Similarly when loyalists protested on a nightly basis at their Twadell camp, the PSNI took a softly, softly approach to daily protests that lasted for more than two years, protests that were supported by the DUP.
In the time of Covid-19 there are understandable concerns about the transmission of infection but following the Bobby Storey funeral there has been a microscopic examination of republican adherence to regulations without the same inspection of the unionist community. There were not the same howls from unionism for the PSNI to intervene when Hugh Hill UVF was being buried.
Last Tuesday dozens of suspected UVF men were seen parading around east Belfast while the PSNI/RUC were seen to be in attendance but like the flag protests they take a minimalist intervention approach.
The next day, however, the PSNI is able to deploy substantial resources to interfere with a funeral from Turf Lodge where those attending are not suspected of being members of a proscribed organisation and brought considerable disruption and interference to grieving family and friends.
The following day they bring disruption to a quiet memorial by families to a loyalist atrocity that resulted in the slaying of numerous innocent victims and in the course of that arrest a survivor of that atrocity.
For me, the partisan actions and political policing of the PSNI/RUC has never been in question. What I find hard to stomach is that people who I once regarded as comrades, because of their assimilation into, and administration of, a reformist administration, tweet or message that they are shocked and appalled by these incidents.
They may be appalled but they are not shocked Nothing has changed in terms of sectarian and political policing.
Yet Sinn Féin politicians who sit in the assembly are obligated by their involvement in it to support the PSNI and urge people to report to it and use it, are fully aware of its continued partisan approach and their defence of it and support of it, only enhances its ability to discriminate against nationalists.
SEAN O’FIACH
Belfast BT11
Grave rumblings
The arrival of a ‘customs border’ in the Irish Sea has seen an eerie response emanating from loyalist/unionist circles with some representatives airing the view that there is ‘anger’ on the streets. There are also accusations that the British are furtively changing the ‘Northern Ireland Act in order to allow the Brexit protocol to be implemented’. This has resulted in loss of support for the Good Friday Agreement within these harbingers of doom as they rue the liquidation of their British identity and action must be taken – grave rumblings indeed.
As loyalism looks for scapegoats while searching for answers it is suggested they look at their democratically elected representatives. The DUP recommended Brexit to their electorate with little regard to the consequences then huffed and puffed spitting ‘blood-red-lines’ when the penny dropped. However, after assurances they simply rolled over and acquiesced to the whims of Boris whose mantra was ‘Brexit at any cost’.
There is little doubt their actions have increased talk of a reunification of Ireland and have left unionism/loyalism pondering the future. The response, however, of the DUP can only be seen as a purposeful distraction – although they have advocated to make the best of both worlds – blaming everyone else from Dublin, London and Brussels for their folly and ultimate betrayal of their followers.
KEVIN McCANN
Belfast BT1
Nuns brought shame on their order and their religion
Reading and listening to the appalling treatment of young girls in the laundries was shocking.
I remember in 1960 I was delivering groceries for a Newry firm to The Good Shepherd Convent, as it was known then. I was only 18 at the time but I will never forget looking through an open door and seeing all those girls. They were all lined up on one side of the room in front of massive white sinks. Washing, wringing and pulling those large sheets. They looked so sad and dowdy with their oversized aprons on.
I am now 80 and still remember that scene. Reading a recent statement from the Order that ran these institutions, they seem to be blaming society. That is not good enough. These religious orders were supposed to care for these young women, help them have their babies and support them. Instead, they treated them with total disdain and outright cruelty.
Why not come out now and tell it as it was at the time. For years before and after these nuns were supposed to be people of God, to show compassion and love to all. They brought shame on their order and their religion.
ARTHUR McATEER
Newry, Co Down
I commend Fr McCafferty for his bold witness
FR PATRICK McCafferty (February 2) rightly condemns President Joe Biden for unworthily receiving the sacrament, while supporting access to abortion.
Scant regard for human life might explain the brutal abortion regime Boris Johnson’s government inflicted on the north last April Fool’s Day. Do the disastrous Covid fatalities in the UK, now exceeding 112,000 deaths and some of the worst in the advanced world, expose the utter barbarity of an incompetent Tory leadership? Science, scripture and the sacrament, all point us to the truth. So Fr McCafferty must be commended for his bold and prophetic witness.
TJ HARDY
Belfast BT5
Twinkle-toed gardai
OKAY twinkle-toed gardai, enough with the River-dancing and leppin’ around the country, get back to the serious business of arresting citizens under the ‘new’ draconian legislation as we go about on our near deserted and crime-free streets.
Look – there’s a number of guys over there with beer cans in their hands and others gathering suspiciously, possibly with a view to saying a few prayers at a holy statue, go get ’em.
ROBERT SULIVAN
Bantry, Co Cork
