Hard-hitting TV ads aim to bring end to paramilitary-style attacks
Some of the images from a new series of graphic TV ads which have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks A NEW series of graphic TV ads have aired for the first time as part of a campaign seeking to challenge the 35% of people who support paramilitary-style attacks.
The adverts, which show a desperate mother driving her terrified son to an appointment with masked gunmen, were shown on UTV and Channel 4 after the watershed last night.
Debra Whyte from the Executive’s Tackling Paramilitarism Programme said the 417 paramilitary style attacks carried out over the last five years demonstrates the need for such a “hard hitting” approach, aimed at exposing the hypocrisy of the “social shrug”.
“We want people to really think about the devastating impact and get to a place where this is seen as unacceptable and where victims are given sympathy.”
Radio and cinema versions of the ads — which depict four differing perspectives of the same brutal attack — will also Anthony Harbinson, chair of the Tackling Paramilitarism Programme Board, at the launch in Girdwood Community Hub in Belfast
be rolled out as part of a bid to hammer home the key message of the Ending The Harm campaign: ‘Paramilitaries Don’t Protect You, They Control You’.
PSNI statistics show that republican groups were responsible for 21 of the 22 shootings carried out last year, whereas loyalists were behind 50 of the 65 paramilitary-style assaults.
But a group of professionals
taking part in a panel discussion at the Girdwood Community Hub yesterday warned that all attacks can have equally devastating consequences for victims.
Paul Smith, co-founder of the Stop Attacks Forum, said tackling social attitudes is essential in ending the coercive control paramilitary groups wield over society, after a Government survey revealed that over a third of people expressed “tacit support” for punishment attacks. “We have turned a blind eye to this for too long,” he said. “I have spoken to teachers and youth workers who have told me privately they are okay with these kind of attacks,” he said.
But he added that it wasn’t right. Mr Smith also warned of the “astronomical costs” of failing to deal with paramilitarism and claimed high numbers of people who only feel safe behind bars are deliberately getting sent to jail.
“It is absolutely shameful that people are put in that situation,” he added.
NI Children’s Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma suspects the same phenomenon is happening in youth prisons.
“According to the most recent stats, 76% of young offenders moving through our youth prisons are Catholic — only 16% are Protestant,” she said.
“We can only surmise that high numbers of Catholic children are trying to stay behind bars because they feel safer in custody.”
The Department of Health’s Chief Social Work Officer, Sean Holland, said the state is failing to protect children and vulnerable adults from “abuse”. Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray defended the PSNI’s 2% conviction record against those who perpetrate paramilitary style attacks, which was slammed as “appalling” by west Belfast priest Fr Martin Magill.
Mr Murray insisted that going after suspects for other criminality is a better use of resources and has resulted in the significant seizure of finances and assets.
“We have also jailed individuals for membership of organisations and serious assaults against fellow paramilitary members,” he added.
Mr Murray also issued a warning to people who incite paramilitary gangs to carry out punishment attacks.
“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” he said. “Do you really think they won’t come knocking on your door in a few weeks?
“These people will use you as mercilessly as they deal out these beatings on the street.”