Loyalists seeking confrontation with marches

Posted by Jim on July 30, 2017

Loyalists marched through a mixed community in south Belfast on Friday
night in a show of strength in tribute to notorious UDA paramilitaries
linked to a string of sectarian atrocities.

The parade through residential streets off Ormeau Road was held for the
23rd anniversary of the death of Joe Bratty and Raymond Elder. The pair
were involved in a massacre at Sean Graham bookmakers along the same
street in 1992 in which five Catholics were killed.

The march had been restricted by the Parades Commission from several
streets including Ormeau Road. However, loyalist paramilitary flags were
flown from lampposts on Blackwood Street where the parade started –
flouting parade rules against paramilitary trappings.

Before the march began, two photographers standing on the street were
pushed and threatened by men who told them to leave the area and not to
take pictures.

The police, who were stationed at several points along the parade route,
made no attempt to intervene.

About ten bands took part in the march, which set off shortly after
7.15pm and finished on Haywood Drive at a controversial memorial garden
funded by the Housing Executive.

The parade was first held in 2014 after the housing body spent eleven
thousand pounds building the monument. A plaque bearing Bratty and
Elder’s names was subsequently fixed to the memorial. The Housing
Executive has since rejected calls to remove the structure.

The organiser of the latest march admitted a tribute to Bratty and Elder
was again taking place at the memorial.

SDLP South Belfast MLA Claire Hanna had branded the parade “offensive”,
while Alliance councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown called it a
“coat-trailing exercise”.

FASCISTS JOIN LOYALIST PROTEST

A far-right group meanwhile said it intends to join loyalists in a
‘counter-protest’ against a civil rights parade in Belfast city centre
next weekend.

A loyalist “anti-terrorism march” is due to take place at the same time
as the anti-internment parade is being organised by republicans and
progressivists.

The organisers of the annual anti-internment parade, the Anti-Interment
League, plan to march from north Belfast through the city centre on
Sunday August 6 before making their way to a rally at Dunville Park in
the west of the city. Up to 5,000 people are expected to take part.

A rival event is to be addressed by Britain First leader Paul Golding
and his deputy Jayda Fransen, who promote themselves as “pro-British,
anti-Islamic, anti-immigration”.

Golding was jailed for eight weeks last year after breaching a High
Court ban on him entering any mosques in England and Wales.

One of the group’s founders was Jim Dowson, a Scottish loyalist who
lives in the North and at one time was close to Golding. Dowson and
Golding were also linked to the Protestant Coalition, which emerged from
the loyalist flag protests.

Anti-Internment League spokesman Dee Fennell met with the Parades
Commission, which has the power to adjudicate on contentious parades and
is still considering both events.

He said that parade organisers have voluntarily agreed to start earlier
and have reduced the number of bands taking part to five.

He expressed concern at the possibility of a “perverse situation where
republicans marching on a human rights issue will be banned” while
far-right leaders are “seemingly able to travel to Belfast from Britain
and have a free rein”.