The Five Demands

Warning over Stormont empasse (The Irish Republican News)

A massive security operation is being put in place ahead of an anti-internment parade through Belfast city centre on Sunday, amid warnings that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement is facing its “greatest challenge”.

In an ominous development, the PSNI police have refused to guarantee the safety of the parade participants. It also refused to give an unconditional undertaking to uphold the Parades’s Commission determination to allow the civil rights march to go ahead.

Hundreds of loyalists have been granted permission to hold a protest as the march makes its way into Belfast city centre.

The march, organised by the Anti-Internment League, marks the 1971 introduction of internment without trial. It will demonstrate against the ongoing use of ‘internment by remand’ to summarily imprison prominent republicans. Up to 4,000 people and 12 bands are set to take part.

Unionists and loyalists are again mobilising to block the annual parade near Royal Avenue, where a loyalist riot successfully blocked the parade last year. Thousands of leaflets and posters have been distributed across Protestant areas of the Six Counties this week, calling on unionists to stop the event.

On Friday, a High Court judge rejected a last-minute legal bid to reduce the number of loyalist protesters. Anti-Internment League spokesman Dee Fennell said the onus was now on the PSNI to ensure that the Parades Commission ruling is “upheld in the same way” as it was for the Orange Order’s July 12 parade through Ardoyne in north Belfast.

Loyalist victims’ campaigner Willie Frazer said he will be attending the protest, and warned that the civil rights parade might prove “provocative”.

“People are not happy and not only about this parade, there are a lot of things building up in the community and I hope the anger does not come out on the day,” he said.

There are also tensions this weekend over parades organised by the Apprentice Boys of Derry, particularly in north Belfast, where a feeder parade will pass through the flashpoint Carrick Hill area.

Last weekend, Sinn Fein’s annual hunger strike commemoration passed off without incident in Derrylin, County Fermanagh, despite a loyalist protest.

The Parades Commission had placed a number of restrictions on Sinn Fein including the banning of military clothing and flags or banners containing IRA symbols.

But unionist warnings of repercussions over the decision to reroute an Orange Order parade away from the nationalist Ardoyne last month have continued throughout the marching season. and have a good day, but added: “If you come here in mind to do something that is illegal, we will arrest you.”