JUST over a week ago a Rangers supporters' double decker bus drove through Belfast city centre with fans singing sectarian songs aloud and chanting UVF at shocked shoppers and passers-by. No attempt was made by the PSNI throughout this hatefest journey to stop the bus and speak to those causing public order and hate crime offences. The media haven't reported on any arrests or charges being brought against the perpetrators.
Last week a number of Catholic families – many who had been on the housing waiting list for years – moved into their new homes in Annalee and Alloa Streets in North Belfast.
As their children played indoors and families settled into their new homes, a mob of masked loyalists invaded the streets and began systematically to break the homes of Catholic residents. They made their escape without any intervention or arrests by the PSNI.
On Saturday at a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest outside Barclays Bank in Belfast city centre, two of the women who have been peacefully protesting there for over six months were arrested and detained for over eight hours by the PSNI. Anyone can look at the footage of the peaceful protest and arrests and see that these two women and the handful of other protestors posed no threat whatever to anyone and were merely highlighting Barclays links to the daily war crimes and genocide that has continued in Gaza for over 18 months.
What these three events highlight is that political policing is alive and well in the Six Counties.
M Doherty,
Belfast 11
