Christian Message Boards: Belfast Police Use Water Cannons Against Catholic Rioters

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Posted by Kindgo (Member # 2) on :

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Saturday, June 29, 2002

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Police fired water cannons at Catholic rioters Saturday after Protestant hard-liners paraded through west Belfast.

An independent Parades Commission had given approval for about 1,000 people from the Orange Order brotherhood to march near Ballymurphy, a hostile Catholic district.

Several hundred Catholics tried to block the route but were held back by riot police with shields as the Protestants marched to the beat of a lone drummer.

Catholics began throwing stones, bottles and other objects once the parade passed. Police responded by dousing the crowd with water jets.

A Catholic protest spokesman, Sean O'Hare, blamed police for causing the trouble by not withdrawing immediately once the parade had passed. The Catholic barrage, he said, offered "an indication of just how angry people in the community are."

Sectarian passions run high in Northern Ireland each summer, when Protestant fraternal groups led by the Orange Order stage marches across this British territory. The parades demonstrate their traditional majority position, commemorate past Protestant struggles and celebrate 17th-century military victories over Catholics.

Since 1995, Catholics led by Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party, have tried to block Orange parades that pass near Catholic areas. The strategy challenges the police to decide which group's rights should prevail.

Sinn Fein opposes the predominantly Protestant police force, which is slowly increasing its recruitment of Catholics in line with Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord.

Earlier Saturday, two officers were injured and a Protestant home was destroyed by gasoline bombs when Catholics and Protestants traded salvos over another wall separating rival districts in east Belfast.