Attempt to have PSNI booted out of Belfast pride parade sees force insist that it supports LGBTQ+ people and ‘wants to understand their policing needs’

The attempt to kick the force off the official roster of celebrations has come in the form of a letter to organisers, arguing that including officers in the festivities would stoke “fear”, be “dangerous”, and undermine the event’s solidarity with “LGBTQ+ people who face police violence and harassment”.

Saturday’s parade in Belfast city centre is at 2pm; the Parades Commission has been notified of 6,000 participants and 30,000 supporters.

Pride organisers were contacted about the letter, but did not respond.

WHO’S WHO IN POLICE-AT-PRIDE ROW?:

The letter objecting to the PSNI is addressed to the co-chairs of Belfast Pride, and comes from “LGBTQ+ members of End Deportations Belfast, CATU Belfast, and Alliance for Choice Belfast”.

Belfast Pride is a not-for-profit company based on Royal Avenue, and headed up by people from various LGBTQ+ organisations like the Rainbow Project, HERe NI, Cara-Friend, and FuSIoN NI (the Financial Services Inclusion Network).

It organises the large-scale parade through the city centre, as well as a slew of events in the days and weeks leading up to it.

Meanwhile the letter calling for the ban is signed by members of the following three groups:

End Deportations Belfast, which describes itself as being “anti-racist, anti-deportations, anti-borders” and aims to see Larne’s immigration removal centre shut;

CATU Belfast (Community Action Tenants Union), which intervenes in housing disputes and aims to use “power in numbers such as marching on a landlord, or... refusing to pay rent”.

It adds: “Actions should always escalate or carry the threat of apparent escalation until our demands are given in to. We want to make our targets scared – financially, reputationally, etc, so they are more inclined to give us our way”;

And Alliance for Choice Belfast is a group which aims to “normalise abortion healthcare” and says “we believe in bodily autonomy for women, trans men and non-binary people”.

AND WHAT DID THE OBJECTORS TO THE POLICE SAY?:

The roughly 1,500-word letter asks Belfast Pride to “halt any plans for a PSNI delegation at Belfast Pride”, which it describes as being “the one day and one event that is intended to be a safe space for LGBTQ+ and marginalised communities in Belfast”.

It says the force is “not a suitable” participant for a host of reasons.

> It cites the recent BBC reports that two police officers took photos of a man who had killed himself – including an image where a dead man’s genitals had been exposed – which were then circulated via phone messages.

It was reported that one of the officers may have taken more such images, and was believed to have been suspended on full pay for five years while being investigated.

That came on top of a BBC report that “images of sex toys were photoshopped on to the faces of female colleagues” and shared among about 20 officers in a group chat.

> Other reasons given were the “unequal policing of the Black Lives Matter protests in Northern Ireland”;

> Reports that there were over 130 sexual assault claims against police over a five-year span;

> The government’s deportation of people to countries where homosexuality is punished;

> And enforcement of vagrancy laws to tackle rough sleepers, especially given that “LGBTQ+ people [are] 14 times more likely to become homeless”.

The letter adds: “The presence of the police at Pride is not only an antithesis of the origins of the early Pride marches for gay liberation, but is fundamentally both dangerous and unacceptable whilst the police carry out violent acts against LGBTQ+ homeless people and refugees.

“To put it simply, we believe that a PSNI delegation should not be welcome at the Belfast Pride march. The organisers of International Women’s Day marches in Belfast do not invite the PSNI and we believe it is time for Belfast Pride to follow suit.

“Pride is a protest after all. Most of the intersecting communities at Pride are those who have been regularly over-policed or representing communities who have been more harshly subjected to police scrutiny and punishment.

“There have been bans, of various forms, against police participation in London Pride and New York Pride already this year.

“We reject the PSNI co-opting Pride as a means of pink-washing the violent acts of evictions, detention, deportations and the targeting of rough sleepers under archaic vagrancy legislation which they carry out every day.

“Belfast Pride cannot both welcome refugees, which it absolutely should, whilst also welcoming the PSNI.

“Instead of welcoming the PSNI, Belfast Pride should be a place where the entire LGBTQ+ community can come together, without fear of facing the same harassment and discrimination which is often visited on many LGBTQ+ people by the police.”

The letters ends: “With pink solidarity for our LGBTQ+ family.”

PSNI RESPONDS BY HIGHLIGHTING LGBTQ+ ALLYSHIP:

The points were put to the police, which issued a statement in the name of Superintendent Sue Steen.

It said: “Pride is an important series of events for those who identify as LGBT+ and we welcome opportunities to engage with, and show our support for, members of the LGBT+ community.

“This also provides an important opportunity to highlight that hate crime, in whatever form, is wrong and the importance of reporting it.

“We also seek to address under representation by evidencing our commitment that the Police Service can be a career choice for people of all backgrounds and cultures and one everyone can be proud of.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to delivering for the LGBT+ community and to help to promote confidence in policing, we are piloting an LGBT+ link officer scheme in Belfast District.

“They will identify existing LGBT+ community groups, associations and organisations across Belfast and the relationships these groups have with police, with the aim to support local officers build on these associations.

“This will help develop an improved understanding of the policing needs of LGBT+ people.

“We are also continuing to part fund the Hate Crime Advocacy Scheme with the Department of Justice, aimed at supporting victims of hate crime to contact the police and support them during an investigation.

“Our objective is to promote confidence in policing and we want to encourage anyone who is a victim of crime to come forward and report it to us.”

The PSNI was asked by the News Letter to be clearer about what exactly an “LGBT+ link officer scheme” is, but it just repeated the same language above.

RECENT POLICE INITIATIVES REPORTED ON BY THE NEWS LETTER:

As previously reported, the PSNI has undertaken a number of LGBTQ+ initiaitives in recent years, besides sending officers to march in uniform at pride parades in Northern Ireland and Dublin (alongside LGBTQ-liveried vehicles – new examples of which have been created for pride 2022);

These include insisting that gay / bisexual people are under-represented in the PSNI, despite available evidence showing exactly the opposite;

Having dedicated LGBTQ+-themed hiring and information events;

Sending an officer to speak at Belfast’s first transgender pride event (as separate to the general pride events);

Hiring Transgender NI to train its custody sergeants (despite one of the group’s leaders publicly expressing violently anti-police views);

Being part of Stonewall’s “workplace equality index” programme (a kind of assessment, done by Stonewall, of how LGBTQ+-friendly the force is);

Encouraging officers to join a dedicated LGBT staff association, a kind of internal pressure group within the force that works to ensure “officers or support staff feel that they can be their true self at work”;

And encouraging LGBTQ+ people to report non-criminal “hate incidents”.

Also in May this year the News Letter reported on a press release issued by police, which said that “supporting the LGBTQIA communities, including both the public and police colleagues, continues to be an area of focus” for the force.

It went on to add that the PSNI “celebrates” people who have “no gender identity” and who “reject binary categories of gender and sexual orientation to express who they are”.

Earlier this week, the Chief Constable spent two hours taking part in a “pride talks back” panel discussion in Belfast, chaired by the BBC’s William Crawley.

Organisers of that event said panellists would be “grilled on how we can advance equality for LGBT+ people”, “banning conversion therapy”, and “countering anti-trans rhetoric”.

More on this topic from the News Letter, one of the only news outlets which regularly covers developments in this area:

Click here: Alliance deputy leader tells MPs that society should accept transgender identities without question instead of being ‘narrow-minded’

Click here: Transgenderism: Doctor questions PSNI pledge to celebrate ‘non-existent genderless people’

Click here: NI Greens declare: ‘Children of any age should be allowed to switch gender’

Click here: Two feminist rallies in Belfast illustrate split in movement over transgenderism

Click here: Criminalising conversion therapy: Northern Ireland must avoid – not mimic – Canada’s new law says transgender writer