Protestant rioters in the
Northern Irish capital attacked police in Belfast by petrol bombs. They also
threw bottle, furniture and bricks which left 32 injured officers and a
politician in hospital on Friday. Hooded youths who were covering their faces,
they were in the north of the city. The police responded by deploying water
cannon and firing baton rounds. On Friday night the unrest was so intense when
the crowds attacked the police with sticks, fireworks, bricks, bottles,
masonry, bombs and swords. Britain had sent more than 600 police to Northern
Ireland in case the tensions become more and dangerous, they sent 400 for
Saturday which followed the riots the night before. Troubles began and
increased on Friday when they tried to force a decision which was by an
adjudication body banning the orange order which was from marching through a
catholic republican area of Belfast. Chief constable Matt Baggott of the police
Services of Northern Ireland said to the reporters that “the scenes were both
shameful and disgraceful”. He criticized leaders who called for protests
against the decision to block their march through the republican Ardoyne area. Baggott
said that some language was emotive and they called thousands of people to
protest and they had not any plan or control, and they were not responsible.
The PSNI said that 32 officers were injured from the violence on Friday at
night, and Nigel Dodds the leading protestant politician was taken to the
hospital because he was hit on his head with a break and knocked out. The
represented of North Belfast in British parliament, Dodds was trying to calm
the crowds down who were so angry, he was discharged from hospital on Saturday.
The date of July 12 marks the victory of protestant king William III over the
deposed Catholic king James II which was in the battle of the Boyne in 1690. It
is the continuous tension between protestant and catholic which continuous for
three decades in the 1970, 1980 and in 1990.
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