A County Derry Sinn Fein councillor has accused the PSNI police of
harassment after his brother’s house was raided on Christmas Eve, while
the family of an eirigi activist were kept apart for the holiday by
bizarre bail demands.
The 26-County government has been accused of planning to introduce
censorship and free speech ‘chilling’ measures following the tragic
death last week of Fine Gael’s junior minister at the Department of
Agriculture, Shane McEntee.
A Catholic priest has urged those responsible for a suspected sectarian
arson attack on his County Antrim church to leave their Catholic
neighbours in peace.
A look at some of the other stories which emerged from initial
reviews of the archived classified papers, partially declassified
in Dublin, Belfast and London this week under the ‘30 years rule’.
The report of the former police ombudsman into the murder of six men in
the Loughinisland massacre has been scrapped after a court hearing on
their judicial review.
A retrial is to be sought in the case of three Ballymena men whose
convictions were quashed this week for the 2006 sectarian murder of
Catholic teenager Michael McIlveen.
The Bloody Sunday families have welcomed news that former British
soldiers may finally be questioned by the PSNI as part of a murder
investigation into the killings.
Multi-party talks on the flags issue at Stormont have been suspended
until next year following an announcement that a forum to unite
different forces within unionism has been organised.
The family of a Catholic murder victim are calling for a new
investigation into his death amid claims that his killers were
informers protected by the police and British intelligence.
A commemoration event in memory of Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows, Richard
Barrett and Rory O’Connor took place in Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery
on December 8.
There were several, simultaneous, overlapping and complementary
conspiracies which taken together inescapably amount to ‘an
overarching state conspiracy in the murder of citizens through collusion’, one of whom was Pat
Finucane.
Trouble broke out tonight in several areas after Belfast was again
brought to a standstill by groups of loyalists demanding the return of
the British flag on Belfast City Hall.
Most of the 500-page review of the 1989 murder of Belfast defence lawyer
Pat Finucane released this week has been heavily censored “in the
interests of state security”, the Finucane family has been told.
The failure of the PSNI to move small numbers of loyalists from busy
public roads has brought Belfast and nearby towns to a halt for several
hours at a time this week during some the busiest days of the year.
The former Ulster Unionist First Minister David Trimble has accused DUP
leader Peter Robinson of cynically stoking tensions over the flying of
the Union flag at Belfast City Hall in order to win back his
parliamentary seat in its former East Belfast stronghold from the
Alliance Party.
A PSNI operation against the nationalist residents of Ardoyne has
heightened tension at a time when the Six-County police have openly
facilitated loyalist roadblocks and disturbances.
The chairman of the 26-County Labour Party Colm Keaveney has called for
a special party conference amid upheaval within the organisation,
founded by Irish socialist heroes James Connolly and Jim Larkin, over
its support for a swingeing right-wing Fine Gael budget.
Falling below the 50 per cent figure was a staggering psychological
shock for unionists, many of whom still have it fixed in their head that
they amount to two thirds of the north’s population.
The widow of murdered Belfast defence lawyer Pat Finucane today
dismissed the report into his death by British barrister Desmond de
Silva as “a sham” and “a whitewash”
The British Prime Minister has admitted the assassination of Pat
Finucane was “an appalling crime” which involved three state agents, the
RUC police and the British Army, but he has stopped short of ordering a
public inquiry.
The leaders of the two main unionist parties held urgent meetings on the
unionist identity tonight following a week of violence and disorder in
the North of Ireland.
Trouble has broken out again in Belfast this evening after more than a
thousand loyalists, including a number of masked paramilitaries,
marched to the city centre to demand the Union Jack flag be reinstated
year-round atop Belfast City Hall.
A wave of unionist violence and intimidation has followed a vote in the
Belfast City Council on Monday to sharply reduce the number of days the
British Union Jack flag flies over the City Hall.
Unionist politicians are to try to turn the tables after a vote to
reduce the flying of the British Union Jack flag above Belfast City Hall
-- with a motion that the ‘Butcher’s Apron’ flies 365 days a year above
Stormont, the seat of the Six County Assembly.
The PSNI has been accused of “a crude attempt at political censorship”
after Newry-based eirigi representative Stephen Murney was remanded
without bail on charges that he had information “likely to be of use to
terrorists”.
Fears over the health of jailed former Sinn Fein Ard Chomhairle member
Gerry McGeough have grown after he was removed for emergency heart
treatment last week.
An open letter from JP Wootton, who is attempting to highlight a major
miscarriage of justice in his conviction for a fatal gun attack on a
PSNI patrol in 2009.
There were scuffles this evening between protestors and 26-County Garda
police at the Dublin parliament following arguably the harshest budget
in living memory.
A loyalist mob which had gathered outside Belfast City Hall this evening
erupted into violence following a vote to limit the days on which the
British Union Jack flag flies above the building.