Mass Mobilisation call on Springfield Road
Residents of the Springfield Road in West Belfast are calling for support for their protest against an Orange march through the area on Saturday afternoon, 30 June.
The mass mobilisation call came after the Parades Commission again decided to allow the parade, which has been the subject of nationalist anger for years.
Last year, a UDA colour party was allowed take part in the march and was ignored by both the RUC and the march organisers.
In previous years, nationalists protesting against the parade, which enters the Springfield Road at Workman Avenue, have been attacked and beaten by the RUC.
In the lead up to this year's march, tension in the area has been high, with loyalists attacking the area on an almost nightly basis.
The worst of these attacks happened last Thursday, 21 June, when between 50 and 100 loyalists came through the Workman Avenue gate and attacked residents. The RUC, who were positioned at the gate, moved against nationalists who were gathered further down the Springfield at Pollard Street, thus allowing the loyalists to come right out onto the Springfield Road.
In the clashes that followed, residents' spokespersons John McGivern and Frances McAuley were injured. McGivern was hit on the side of the head by a brick while McAuley suffered a fractured skull when she was hit with have a breeze block.
However, this year the parades decision has only fuelled the tension.
In a split decision, the Parades Commission ruled that the parade, consisting of the Whiterock Orange Lodge, could proceed along Workman Avenue and up the Springfield Road, an entirely nationalist route.
The second part of the decision bars the loyalist bands and `followers' from this route and instructs them to follow an alternative route along Ainsworth Avenue and onto the Shankill and Woodvale Road.
Speaking to An Phoblacht, Frances McAuley ridiculed the Parades Commission, saying ``for years they refused to accept that this alternative route was feasible now they are sending the bands along it. They should have done the right thing and banned this parade from the Springfield altogether given that the area they walk through is almost 100% nationalist''.
d in a threatening reaction to the ruling, leading Belfast Orangeman Dawson Baillie warned: ``The people involved will not be taking this lying down and they are quite angry.''
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