Sinn Féin is organising a 35th anniversary "return march" from Dungannon to Coalisland to mark the 1968 civil rights demonstration – and to demand the rights of people to vote.
Details of the march, scheduled for Dungannon on August 23, were announced at a Sinn Féin press conference yesterday.
Mid-Ulster representative, Councillor Francie Molloy, who was on the original civil rights march, recalled that then one of the issues was "one man one vote".
Mr Molloy said: "Now we have the cancellation of the assembly election.
"Despite the fact of having clearly won the right to vote the British government has unilaterally cancelled the election, denying everyone the right to vote.
"Thirty-five years on, the march is reversed, as we are going from Dungannon to Coalisland.
"This signals that the British government is going backways in cancelling the election.
"We need the election to renew mandates, and to ensure that the Good Friday agreement is implemented in full. We are asking everyone to defend the right to vote.
"That is the big issue."
Sinn Féin national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said the origins of what became known as 'the Troubles' was the inability of governments to respond to the demands for democratic franchise or civil rights and equality.
He said: "It would appear that in the present circumstances that the wheel is turning full circle, or indeed there is a retreat from the comitments given in the Good Friday Agreement to delivering on those democratic rights.
"Now, we know what happened when politics was so severely undermined and the peaceful civil rights movement was literally eventually bludgeoned and shot off the streets.
"What emerged then was a period of quite horrendous conflict."
Mr McLaughlin said: "It took a considerable amount of effort to create a peaceful scenario in which outstanding democratic rights could be achieved on the basis of equality.
"It is a matter of considerable concern that Tony Blair in particular has taken his eye off the ball and decided that all those commitments that were given, irrespective of whether they directly impinge on the internal difficulties of the unionist party, should not be proceeded with on the basis that there are difficulties in the UUP. This is unacceptable."
Mr McLaughlin cautioned that recent history shows political vacuums tend to get filled – "but Sinn Féin prefer to fill these with politics and this is our commitment to the peace process".
