Fírinne in Fermanagh, the group that campaigns on behalf of victims of British state violence, protested against the stop & search powers being used by the PSNI on Tuesday night [January 19].
Members and supporters of Fírinne gathered outside the Killyhevlin Hotel in Enniskillen where a Six-County Policing Board meeting was taking place to highlight the recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the use of stop & search under the British government’s Section 44 and the Justice & Security Act is unlawful.
The PSNI displayed their usual disregard for the right to peaceful assembly by videoing the demonstrators and noting down the car registration numbers of local people.
Bernice Swift, the project manager of Fírinne and an independent republican councillor in Fermanagh, attended the protest.
“The Strasbourg court ruled it was unlawful for police to use the powers, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to stop and search people without needing any grounds for suspicion, further adding that the way they were authorised, were ‘neither sufficiently circumscribed, nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse’,” Swift said.
“Unanimous agreement by European judges said the power to search a person's clothing and belongings in public included elements of humiliation and embarrassment which was a clear interference with the right to privacy. One example in Fermanagh, where one young man was stopped and searched three times in two hours was wholly unacceptable, and has now been ruled as illegal
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