A west Belfast weekly newspaper, the Andersonstown News, has urged Sinn Fein to break with precedent and condemn the IRA murders in Lurgan last Monday of RUC Constables Roland John Graham and David Johnston.
The newspaper said in an editorial that the murders in Lurgan were "wrong, brutal and counterproductive and demanded to be condemned outright.
"It is no longer good enough for the leaders of Sinn Fein to stick to the tired old mantra of refusing to indulge in the politics of condemnation. If a thing is wrong, it is wrong, and deserves to be branded as such", the editorial stated.
"We recognise that for Sinn Fein to undertake such a sea change in policy would be a highly contentious move for some within the party and we understand that the party fears falling into a cul de sac in which the moral rules are set down by the British, the one side to the conflict with less right to engage in moralising than any of the three. But it needs to be said - not because the British are demanding it, but because it is true."
The paper said that the IRA was "fast becoming not a symptom of the problem, as they have liked to portray themselves over the past 28 years, but part of the problem itself. This is a fact which has to be addressed by the republican movement as a whole".
Mr Basil McLaughlin, editor of the Andersonstown News, said that there had been an unusually strong response to the editorial. "Ninety per cent of callers supported our view, while only about 10 per cent complained", he added.
