Sinn Féin's youth wing has been criticised for distributing badges shaped as rifles to university students in Belfast yesterday.
Representatives of Ogra Shinn Féin sold the badges from a stall at a fresher's day event in Queen's University Students' Union.
One is an Armalite rifle fashioned into the republican slogan Tiocfaidh Ar La while the other depicts a bird clutching an Armalite in its talons surrounded by the words 'The Spirit of Freedom'.
A spokesperson for the student's union said the badges should be "confined to history".
"The Fresher's Bazaar is an opportunity for students to participate, enhance and develop their knowledge of the university and society in general through the experience of sporting societies, membership of political societies or student societies.
"We are frankly surprised that badges of this nature were for sale to students and we would have thought such badges – given their symbolism and nature and the current political climate – would have been confined to history."
Meanwhile, SDLP former minister for employment and learning and South Belfast assembly member Carmel Hanna said the two badges "glorified violence".
"I think it is deplorable that Sinn Féin peddle this kind of rubbish, especially to young people up to university for the first time," she said.
"What sort of mixed message is Sinn Féin sending out? At a time when we are all trying to free ourselves from the negative legacies of the past, what does such crassness say about their commitment to 'exclusively peaceful means'?"
No-one from Ogra Shinn Féin was available for comment last night.
The youth party has been heavily involved in the campaign for the closure of the Sellafield nuclear plant and in recent years held a series of protests against the pace of demilitarisation in south Armagh.
Army watchtowers were dismantled in the area as part of a rolling package, however, the youth party claimed the process was being drawn out.
In October 2001 its representatives were involved in a protest at the Glassdrumman watchtower in south Armagh.
Approximately 100 protesters faced police in riot gear during the incident in which they tried to breach the perimeter fence of the observation post near Crossmaglen.
Nine months later a group of up to 50 masked youths threw missiles at a rural police station in Co Fermanagh.
At the time a spokesman for Ogra Shinn Féin said the attack was an "expression of frustration" at what they felt was the slow pace of demilitarisation.
