Rnu Call Parades Proposal A Blueprint For Secterian Marches

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Friday April 23, 2010 17:22

by Ardoyne Republican - Republican Network for Unity (RNU)

Preas Ráiteas ó RNU/RNU Press Release

REPUBLICAN NETWORK for UNITY (RNU) spokesperson, MARTIN Óg MEEHAN, responding to draft proposals to replace the North’s Parades Commission with gerrymandered adjudication panels asked, “has the DUP has been given ’product’ in the guise of a thinly veiled blueprint to open the way for Orange feet to march down Nationalist roads and to close down protests.”

REPUBLICAN NETWORK for UNITY (RNU) spokesperson, MARTIN Óg MEEHAN, responding to draft proposals to replace the North’s Parades Commission with gerrymandered adjudication panels asked, “has the DUP has been given ’product’ in the guise of a thinly veiled blueprint to open the way for Orange feet to march down Nationalist roads and to close down protests.”

“This DUP-Sinn Fein deal casts away the legal procedures which has blocked unwelcome marches from trampling on nationalist victims on the Garvaghy Road and other routes. The DUP, advised by the Orange Order, demanded and is apparently satisfied that the new arrangements will deliver product. The cornerstone of the new deal conceded to the DUP will be a handpicked adjudications panel. The working group picked to agree the blueprint was comprised of DUP or Sinn Fein nominees who could be counted upon to follow whatever deal was struck at the top.

“Nationalists were pledged that Sinn Fein was not playing poker and would not pay the price of Orange feet on the Garvaghy Road, or Ardoyne. Residents of those areas now question whether they have been played like poker chips. Has their right to be free of sectarian parades in their areas been bartered away beneath the political cover of a deal that has satisfied the DUP and Orange Order? Have the DUP and Orange been told that such parades could not be granted outright, but would be delivered by a gerrymandered adjudication panel that would also outlaw nationalist protests?

“We challenge Republicans to look at the reality of this blueprint. DUP member Nelson McCausland has hailed the proposals as a new era of Orange parades where the right to parade is “firmly enshrined” and what he deems preferential treatment for protests is outlawed. Is this an idle boast or will this blueprint foreshadow DUP-Sinn Fein nominees complicit in pushing an agreed number of Orange sectarian parades through nationalist areas and banning the protests of nationalist residents?

“RNU will continue to confer with residents in these areas and will support join with other nationalists and Republicans to support them against any attempt to facilitate Orange marches in their streets.”