Amnesty International calls for inquiry into alleged covert surveillance by PSNI
Two human rights organizations have called on Northern Ireland's Policing Board to launch an inquiry into alleged covert surveillance against lawyers and journalists by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Amnesty International and the Commit‐ tee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) have urged the Policing Board to hold an inquiry after PSNI Chief Consta‐ ble Jon Boutcher gave an "utterly vague" report on the issue.
The two organizations added that Boutcher provided inadequate answers to questions asked by the Policing Board last September.
The issue came to light during an Inves‐ tigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) investi‐ gation into claims made by Northern Irish journalists Barry McCa rey and Trevor Birney, who said they were sub‐ jected to unlawful surveillance between 2011 and 2018 in a bid to uncover their sources.
The investigative journalists were ar‐ rested in 2018 shortly after the release of their award-winning documentary "No Stone Unturned", which investigated al‐ leged collusion between loyalist para‐ militaries and British security forces in the 1994 Loughlinisland Massacre, in which six Catholics were killed.
The arrests were later ruled unlawful and the PSNI and Durham Constabulary, who carried out raids against the two men, were rebuked by Northern Ireland's top judge.
McCa rey and Birney asked the IPT to investigate the use of covert surveil‐ lance against them but only found out last year that the tribunal had been con‐ ducting a secret investigation into the matter, more than four years after they lodged the complaint.
Amnesty International and the CAJ said that the IPT has revealed three in‐ stances of covert surveillance against McCa rey and Birney - in 2011, 2013, and 2018.
The two organizations added that they fear that the use of covert surveillance against journalists, lawyers, and human rights advocates goes much further than what has been revealed in the investiga‐ tion so far.
They are now calling on the Policing Board to exercise its formal powers and secure a full disclosure from the PSNI. "The Policing Board rightly criticized the Chief Constable’s answers to their ques‐ tions," Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty Inter‐ national’s Northern Ireland Director, said in a statement.
"His report clearly fell short of their ex‐ pectations in terms of transparency which is unacceptable and undermines the Board’s role of holding the police ac‐ countable.
"We welcome the Board’s request for further information from the Chief Con‐ stable and its decision to task the Board’s human rights advisor, John Wadham, to further investigate police policy and practice.
"However, given the inadequacy of the responses from the Chief Constable, and in the interests of public confidence in both policing and accountability of policing, the Board should now also move to exercise their powers to hold an inquiry into potentially unlawful use of covert surveillance powers."