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Dissident republicans (Irish: poblachtach easaontach)[1] are Irish republicans who do not support the Northern Ireland peace process. The peace agreements followed a 30-year conflict known as the Troubles, in which over 3,500 people were killed and 47,500 injured,[2] and in which republican paramilitary groups such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army waged a campaign to bring about a united Ireland. Negotiations in the 1990s led to an IRA ceasefire in 1994 and to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Mainstream republicans, represented by Sinn Féin, supported the Agreement as a means of achieving Irish unity peacefully. Dissidents saw this as an abandonment of the goal of an Irish socialist republic and acceptance of partition. They hold that the Northern Ireland Assembly and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are illegitimate and see the PSNI as a British paramilitary police force.
Some dissident republican political groups, such as Republican Sinn Féin and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, support political violence against the British security forces and oppose the Provisional IRA's 1994 ceasefire; other groups, such as the Republican Network for Unity, wish to achieve their goals only through peaceful means.
Since the IRA ceasefire, splinter groups have continued an armed campaign against the British security forces in Northern Ireland. Like the Provisional IRA, each of these groups sees itself as the only rightful successor of the original IRA and each calls itself simply "the IRA", or Óglaigh na hÉireann in Irish (see also Irish republican legitimism).
It is estimated some 3,530 people died during the Troubles on all sides and more than 47,500 were injured.