‘There will never be justification for gun law, criminality and murder’ – Gemma Weir

The Workers Party in Belfast has  organised a public protest meeting against recent murders and maimings  in the city.

The meeting was prompted by the  murder of Dan Murray just several hundred yards away from the site of the meeting, but also reflected the  growing public anger and resilience in the face of eleven serious armed attacks across Belfast in the past six months in which four people were murdered and several others, including a seventeen year old boy, seriously wounded.

Chairing the  protest Conor Campbell said, “It is important that the community publicly displays its resilience in the face of these attacks and demonstrates its refusal to accept the rule of armed gangs across the city’

Party representatives Gemma Weir and Joanne Lowry also addressed the meeting

Gemma Weir (North Belfast) said , ‘ I am here tonight to tell you – there is no justification whatsoever for murder on our streets. There was no justification in the past, there is no justification now. There will never be justification for gun law, criminality and murder.

This cannot go on. We cannot allow it to continue. Right across Belfast we have to respond as a community. We all have to stand up and say No to murder, No to attempted Murder and No to maiming’.

Joanne Lowry ( West Belfast) challenged those responsible and those who support them to explain themselves.

‘We can’t bring back the people they have murdered. We can’t un-shoot the people they have shot. Be we sure as hell can stand up to them and make sure that that they have murdered their last victim and crippled their last teenager’, she said.

‘West Belfast was blighted by these type of attacks for almost thirty years. Yet eighteen years after the Good Friday Agreement we not only have murder on our streets but we have the remains of a culture which supports and justifies it.’, Joanne added

‘It’s not just the gunmen and the thugs that we need to confront. There are also people who support them. They have to be held to account too. I am challenging them to explain themselves and their actions to this is community’,  Joanne concluded

The meeting was also addressed by SDLP and Sinn Fein MLAs

Anyone with information about the murder of Dan Murray, or any of the other recent shootings, get in touch with the PSNI directly at Grosvenor Road PSNI Station or by using the Crimestoppers number 0800 555 111