ireland, irish, ulster, belfast, northern ireland, british, loyalist, nationalist, republican, unionist

(Damien McCarney, Irelandclick.com)

Sinn Féin say that the PSNI are missing the point when it comes to distributing wristbands in nationalist areas. The PSNI's policy of handing out wristbands bearing the slogan 'Respect Difference' and the PSNI website address in the Beechmount and lower Falls area was criticised in an article carried by the Andersonstonwn News in July.

In that article Sinn Féin Lower Falls Councillor Fra McCann (right) branded the PSNI as hypocrites for issuing the wristbands supporting the idea of respecting differences at the same time as they assaulted nationalists during confrontations in Ardoyne over the marching issue. As an aside an observation was made in the article that there was no green on the particular wristband handed in to Sinn Féin which instead had red, white and blue.

The following week a response was sent to the Andersonstown News by PSNI Chief Inspector Dianne Crockard saying that Sinn Féin Councillor Fra McCann's accusations were "disingenuous".

In her letter the Chief Inspector concentrated purely on the colour of the wristbands and said that the production process meant that each wristband was coloured differently and many did contain green.

Last week the PSNI posted three of their multi-coloured bands to Cllr McCann to show that the colouring of the wristbands are random and many do in fact have green in them.

"They are completely missing the point. I don't care if they are green, white and orange. The point I am making is that the wristbands say respect difference and yet in the same week they handed them out, they were trying to kill nationalists by firing plastic bullets and using batons. The fact that the PSNI had the gall to hand out wristbands to nationalists show that they have their heads in the ground. They are not wanted in nationalist areas," said Cllr McCann.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on August 11, 2005.