Huge rally in support of 'peacemaker' Gerry Adams in Belfast

HUGE crowds gathered on the Falls Road in Belfast on Saturday afternoon to demand the release of Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

A mural was launched at the event in support of the imprisoned republican leader. Many of those at the event carried posters calling for his release and comparing him to Nelson Mandela. Others condemned the arrest as an attack on the Peace Process.

The North's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, spoke to the crowd describing the arrest of the Louth TD as being "designed to disrupt the election campaign".

McGuinness also queried how some could claim the timing of the arrest was not a very blatant act of political policing:

"The PSNI has had the Boston tapes for a year.

"The allegations contained in books and newspaper articles which the PSNI are presenting to Gerry as evidence that he was in the IRA in the 1970s have been around for 40 years.

"But they are only now trying to use these. Is that not political policing?"

He also hit out at the double standards at play in terms of the failure of the PSNI to arrest those British soldiers behind the Ballymurphy or Bloody Sunday massacres.

The Mid-Ulster MLA added:

"Gerry Adams stands head and shoulders above all of those who helped build the peace process.

"He is a peace maker, a leader, a visionary.

"There would be no peace process but for his commitment and dedication.

"Gerry Adams is committed to moving this process forward."