Doherty says SF intention was not to halt meeting

Sinn Féin's vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, has said the intention of last night's protest at the firstpublic session of Omagh…

Sinn Féin's vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, has said the intention of last night's protest at the firstpublic session of Omagh's policing partnership board was not to halt the meeting.

Even though he insisted people had the right to picket the event, Mr Dohertyaccepted it should not have led to it being stopped.

Mr Doherty said: "This was a local Sinn Féin initiative butthe intention was not to force the meeting to be abandoned.

"People should have gone along and made their feelings known and the meetingcould have gone ahead."

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Under new arrangements, all 26 district councils in the North havetheir own monitoring bodies to set policing targets and hold commanders toaccount.

Mr Doherty said republican anger over policing has been fuelled byScotland Yard chief Sir John Stevens's findings of shocking levels of collusionbetween Special Branch and loyalist killers, and the cancellation of electionsto the Northern Ireland Assembly.

"Let's put this into perspective. This was a local meeting of the DistrictPolicing Partnership that was abandoned," he said."The British Government cancelled an election which derives directly from theGood Friday Agreement which was endorsed by the people of Ireland north andsouth. They have put the Good Friday Agreement on ice."That is why we have a political vacuum, that is why we have deep andjustifiable anger, but I would appeal to people to protest in a peaceful anddisciplined way."

Professor Desmond Rea, who chairs Northern Ireland's central Policing Board said: "The intimidation of the public who were there and the members who havecome forward to play their part was reprehensible."

His vice chairman, Denis Bradley, claimed republicans were now out oftouch with public opinion.

He said: "I think it is bad manners and bad politics. Sinn Féin is fightingover an issue which is dead.

"The general public has moved past that and the people of Omagh have a rightto be heard and to be involved in one of the most important areas of life -policing."

SDLP councillor Gerry O'Doherty, the Omagh policing chairman, accusedrepublicans of orchestrating the event.

"Anybody who disrupts the meeting and does not allow people to speak isguilty of pure fascism, as far as I am concerned," he said.

PA