Return     Big Font     Normal Font     Small Font
  Mail this article   Print version
 
UDA call prompts fall-off in nightly Belfast riots
online.ie
2005-09-14 07:50:02+01
Loyalist gangs engaged in a fourth night of violence throughout Belfast and surrounding areas last night, but the trouble was considerably less intense than the riots over the previous three nights.

One police officer was injured in a petrol bomb attack in Lisburn overnight, while petrol and blast bombs were thrown at New Barnsley PSNI station in west Belfast.

PSNI officers came under attack with petrol bombs and stones in the east of the city.

The fall-off in violence follows a call for calm yesterday by the Ulster Defence Association.

The UDA has been accused of orchestrating much of the riots over the past few days, which were sparked by a contentious Orange Order parade that was banned from the nationalist Springfield Road.

The violence has been widely condemned, but unionist and loyalist politicians have been insisting that the root causes must be recognised and addressed.

David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party said yesterday that loyalists believed the peace process had brought them nothing and nationalists everything.

"Whilst many unionists would condemn the violence," he said, "they will also tell you that they are distracted by the sense that the unionist community has been set aside while the [British] Government plays footsie with the republicans."