PSNI Urged to Use New Powers to Tackle Flying of Paramilitary Flags

It is well known that Northern Ireland has an issue with the flying of paramilitary flags, one which our police service has been struggling with for many years. Last week the Belfast Telegraph reported…

East Belfast Alliance MLA Peter McReynolds hit out at the latest banners which were placed next to a new housing development completed last year. Such flags are seen as a means of controlling who moves into the properties. “Alliance has always strongly condemned the placement of sectarian flags and emblems from proscribed organisations on public property. There is absolutely no place for them in society,” Mr McReynolds said. “Such displays seek only to mark territory and create division, and I will be raising the recent placement of these flags with the PSNI and DfI (Department for Infrastructure) to ensure their removal from the housing development immediately.”

Since then paramilitary flags have actually been erected just outside the PSNI’s East Belfast training college, with the Irish News reporting that McReyonlds characterised this as

Loyalists…giving the ‘two fingers’ to and ‘laughing at’ the PSNI and Stormont departments over their failure to remove paramilitary and other flags…During Thursday’s board meeting Mr McReynolds said east Belfast is “drenched in flags” including union and “more sinister” displays. He read an email from a frustrated constituent who claimed “a few men with a set of ladders and some flags are running rings around the PSNI, DfI (Department for Infrastructure) and any other authority I can think of”.

The Alliance man said those behind the flags are laughing at the police.“My impression is that within that context the people who are putting up these flags, range of flags, they are almost laughing at statutory bodies and the police because they know they are not going to be taken down,” he said.

The Police have historically not intervened to remove such flags, only seizing them if they are to be used as evidence in a prosecution. But legislation recently passed at Westminster gives our local Police Service much greater latitude in how to deal with paramilitary displays though whether they use those powers remains to be seen, as it has been clarified that while they have the power to remove paramilitary displays, they don’t have the duty. The Belfast Telegraph queried the intentions of the Police with regards to some prominent displays in light of their new powers..

A police spokesperson said they “consider each incident on a case-by-case basis, and the individual circumstances will determine what specific action police take.Where any offences have been committed, the circumstances will always be investigated. The primary responsibility for removing flags rests with the property owner and the Police Service of Northern Ireland will consider any requests for assistance,” they said.

Police said that the owners of street furniture, such as lampposts, which fall under the remit of the Department of Infrastructure, also possess the “primary responsibility”.

The Westminster Government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, has been behind the changes and is interviewed in the same article and he advocates for the PSNI to update their approach in light of the new legislation.

Mr Hall has insisted that the amendment marks a “common sense” approach as the PSNI no longer have a “legal excuse for not acting”…“You should never have a situation in which the police lack what looks like a very common sense power to remove the pernicious display of support for a paramilitary organisation. “We all know the explanations about why you don’t want these symbols flying,” he added. “And the last thing you want is to keep those power structures alive with support….“[Police] cannot say, ‘It’s not for us to do it; it’s got to be the infrastructure providers.’ If they don’t do it, it’s a question of choice,” he said.

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