Londonderry dissidents accuse Sinn Féin and DUP of hypocrisy

Danny McBrearty Chairperson of the Republican Network for Unity (RNU) made the comments after disturbances across Northern Ireland in the wake of the annual Twelfth demonstrations.

"While bargaining for a compromised Stormont justice ministry, the DUP, at the behest the Orange Order, demanded that the Parades Commission be scrapped and replaced with a new blueprint for dealing with Orange parades routed through nationalist areas," he stated.

"Clearly, the DUP was not envisioning a new legal framework that would afford nationalists equal or greater legal protection of their rights to be free from sectarian harassment," he added.

"The Republican Network for Unity (RNU) among many others 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 nationalist protests?'"

Mr McBrearty said the questions were muted by deferral of the issue to a working party comprised exclusively of members or party loyalists of the DUP or Sinn Fin respectively.

He claimed the proposed, Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests Bill would "bin legal procedures and protections which blocked Orange marchers from trampling on nationalist rights on the Garvaghy Road and other albeit not all routes."

He said the legislation would criminalise striking factory workers as it would be applied across the board.

"The same process would be applied across the board to any public meeting, held for any purpose at any location, so long as it was attended by more than 50 people and was not a funeral.

"Fifty people holding placards in support of Republican prisoners at Free Derry corner would face the same burdensome framework as a Republican parade to the Waterside," he argued.

Mr McBrearty accused Sinn Fin and the DUP of hypocrisy over parades and protests and said they were saying "do as I say, not as I do."

"Both the DUP and Sinn Fein have emerged from the status of small minority parties to their present status.

"The early political growth of Sinn Fin is widely regarded to be traceable to the H-Block campaign, particularly the Hunger Strike rallies.

"The DUP has a similar history. Are these parties which built political strength through political protest agreeing to a common interest in preventing others from taking that same path now that they are the establishment?" he asked.