People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said,
“We are not at all surprised PSNI representatives have pulled out of a meeting with Derry and Strabane Councillors today.
The PSNI aren’t accountable and do not want to be held accountable.
Throughout the pandemic policing has been politically selective. Workers are harassed on strike. Black Lives Matter protests are criminalised, prosecuted and fined. The PSNI has criminalised Creggan and violated human rights with violent heavy handed policing. Students have been demonised and fined in massive numbers.
There has been one set of rules for ordinary people and then another set of rules for the politically connected. The dogs in the streets are barking about the inconsistencies involved in who gets cracked down on and who doesn’t.
Let’s be honest, when it comes to the inconsistent selective policing and crackdowns on, for example, Black Lives Matter protests, it couldn’t happen without the support of the Stormont Executive parties.
We are approaching the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by police in the US. Mass demonstrations organised by the Black Lives Matter movement were required to hold police there accountable that racist murder.
Here, official investigations have demonstrated the PSNI crackdown on June 6 Black Lives Matter protests in Derry and Belfast were discriminatory and violated people’s civil rights. Yet, the threats of prosecution and the fines are still in place. Stormont Executive parties, not just the DUP but Sinn Féin, SDLP and Alliance, were just as responsible for the June 6 crackdown.
That’s why we don’t trust the word of any of the Stormont political establishment parties, nationalist or unionist, when it comes to what they say in public about policing. They’re all interested in protecting the rotten sectarian carve-up.
Internationally a discussion has opened up about the role, accountability and funding of the police. Retiring Merseyside police chief Andy Cooke called for funding to be rediverted from policing to programmes that can tackle poverty and inequality. That’s not even something the Stormont Executive is thinking about.
None of the accountability and changes we need to see will come from the political establishment.”