Fermanagh Sinn Féin Youth held a march and rally to the RUC barracks in Enniskillen last Sunday. The crowd heard speeches by Assembly members Gerry McHugh (Fermanagh-South Tyrone) and John Kelly (Mid-Ulster).

Gerry McHugh demanded the immediate disbandment of the RUC rather than an attempted reform and called for their replacement to be a credible policing service which would be acceptable to nationalists.

John Kelly was concerned that the Policing Commission would only concentrate on present RUC excesses rather than their past ones and called for the establishment of a Truth and Justice Commission to bring those guilty of human rights abuses and collusion with loyalists to justice. He reminded present RUC men of how a Sergeant Campbell of the force was murdered by his own colleagues because he was going to expose their true nature.

The crowd was also addressed by SFY Fermanagh co-ordinator Fintan Maguire.

SFY in Catalonia

A Sinn Fein Youth delegation recently returned from a two day conference on ``Nations without States in Europe''. The event was hosted by the Catalonian Nationalist Party JERC. Other delegations included Plaid Cymru from Wales and the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Delegation leader Colleen Gildernew said: ``The trip was an important stage in the development of Sinn Fein Youth's international relations strategy. At the conference Sinn Fein Youth ensured that the resolutions agreed included elements surrounding the state's abuse of human rights through the use of repressive legislation''.

The SFY delegation also participated in the Catalonian National Independence Day. A crowd of around 5,000 assembled to hear Colleen Gildernew praise the efforts of the Catalan people in supporting the cause of Irish unity over the past thirty years. She also complimented the Catalan people on their own lengthy campaign to secure national self determination.

•SFY national organiser Eoin O'Broin attended a trade union conference last weekend in Bishops Stortford in England. the Manufacturing, Services and Financial Union (MSF) invited SFY to speak at their annual Lesbian and Gay rights weekend to discuss the current political situation in Ireland, Sinn Fein's lesbian, gay and bisexual rights policy and the impact of the peace process on the lives of the lesbian and gay community.

O'Broin shared a platform with equality activists from Wales and Scotland during a session dealing with the impact of constitutional change on issues of gay rights.

Highlighting the centrality of equality to SF's political project O'Broin said that ``Sinn Fein emerged out of the Irish people's struggle for civil rights during the 1960s. Our agenda going into the All Ireland Ministerial Council and the Belfast Assembly is one of equality, social economic, political and cultural for all people. Our policy on lesbian, gay and bisexual rights means that our equality agenda explicitley includes questions of sexual orientation. As our party policy states, rights are not negotiable, either you are for equality for all or you are against it.''