PSNI must learn lessons from report
THE finding by the Police Ombudsman that allegations the PSNI’S handling of a Black Lives Matter protest and a ‘protect our monuments’ counter protest were unfair and discriminatory gives the Chief Constable Simon Byrne and his senior officers plenty to think about when deciding on how to police future protests.
However, Mr Byrne will be relieved that the Ombudsman, Marie Anderson, insisted that police did not act on grounds of race or ethnicity. But that is about the only good news for him in the 90-page report.
Mrs Anderson said the confidence among some within the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities in Northern Ireland had been severely damaged by the differing police actions to the two protests. This is a damning indictment of policing among ethnic communities and requires urgent action to redress the situation.
Officers had issued fixed penalty notices and initiated follow-up investigations against Black Lives Matter protesters as a result of their demonstration on June 6 this year, but no enforcement of follow up action took place in respect of those involved in a counter demonstration a week later.
The Black Lives Matter protest followed the fatal shooting of George Floyd in the US by police officers who were arresting him.
The Ombudsman’s investigations essentially found that police had tried to persuade the Black Lives Matter protesters to call off their demonstration but the ‘protect our monuments’ protesters had been encouraged to gather in a Covid-compliant manner.
Police acknowledged before the second demonstration on June 13 that the anti-racism protesters might feel they had been treated unfairly if the counter protesters were not subject to the same treatment.
Having identified a criticism which did follow, the police oddly still went ahead with a different approach,
The Ombudsman’s finding that police did not fully understand their human rights obligations is astounding as the PSNI often points out that it is frequently hamstrung by human rights law. The Ombudsman’s recommendations that the force adopt a human rightsbased approach to policing protests, that they review the use of fixed penalty notices which had been issued and, where appropriate redress those affected, and that Mr Byrne report periodically to the Policing Board on the force’s engagement with BAME communities are sensible and progressive suggestions and Mr Byrne should let the public know today what his views on the report are.