Sectarian incidents and attacks

Introduction:

The following list of sectarian and other hate-driven incidents and attacks is from 1 through 28 February 2002. The criteria we use for inclusion is based on the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) criteria; if a person/organisation feels that the motivation for an attack against them was sectarian (or racist or homophobic), then it should be counted as such. We rely on a number of sources for our information, but this is by no means comprehensive. If you find incidents that have been left off the list please contact us. A full dossier of sectarian and other hate attacks from January 1999 until January 2002 is also available.

February 1, Friday.
Loyalists planted a booby trap bomb under the car of a Catholic woman outside Dungannon, according to "senior security sources". The woman, who is seven months pregnant, spotted the device before getting into her car, and alerted security forces. The device, described as "sophisticated", contained a ¾ kilo charge of Powergel, the South African-made commercial explosive believed to have been used in the loyalist bomb that killed Rosemary Nelson in 1999. (IN, RUC)

According to a Northern Ireland Executive commissioned report on racism, race attacks in the north in 2000 numbered 269, up 400% on 1996, with the majority of victims being of Pakistani or Indian origin. Members of the Chinese community have also suffered a number of racially motivated physical assaults. The report warned that attacks were likely to be grossly underreported by victims because of fear of reprisal. (IN)

Belfast should not become European City of Culture until institutional sectarianism is tackled, said Fra McCann, Sinn Féin councillor for West Belfast. Mr McCann asked how anyone could take Belfast seriously as a City of Culture in the light of the Holy Cross protests and the murder of Daniel McColgan. "Last week we saw unionists vote to spend £100,000 on the upcoming [Queen of England’s] jubilee celebrations" he said. "This came after we were told there was no money available for a St. Patrick’s Day Carnival". He also pointed to the religious discrimination evident in the make-up of the upper echelons of Belfast City Council. (IN)

Elaborate bomb hoaxes prevented Ulster Unionist MLA and Assembly Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, Michael McGimpsey, from attending the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Enniskillen Gaels Gaelic Football Club. 750 guests were evacuated. Four devices later found were declared to be hoaxes. A group calling itself the Ulster Protestant Coalition had earlier announced its intention to wage an anti-GAA campaign. Local sources say the group is a cover name for the local UVF. (IN, CW)

A 15-year-old Catholic boy will need reconstructive surgery after he and two friends were assaulted by a gang of loyalist men who got out of a car at the junction of the Westland and Cavehill Roads in north Belfast. (IN, CW, NBN, RUC)

The RUC/PSNI uncovered a quantity of ammunition and several guns in Braehill Crescent, north Belfast. (ST)

February 2, Saturday.
Loyalists, believed to be UDA members, intimidated four Catholic students from Queen’s University out of their houses in the loyalist Village area of south Belfast. When two of them returned to get their belongings, they were beaten by a six-man gang armed with sledgehammers and clubs. One of the students suffered a fractured skull, two broken arms, a broken jaw and multiple cuts and bruises. The other sustained a suspected fractured arm and cuts and bruises. Local sources say that there have been a series of UDA attacks on students in recent months. (SBN, CW, RUC, IN)

At 12:30pm Loyalists from Tigers Bay attacked nationalist homes in Newington Street, moving up as far as Clanchattan Street, provoking a riot which lasted up to an hour. (CW)

Loyalists also threw petrol bombs, fireworks and bricks at nationalist homes in the Gunnel Hill, Arthur Bridge and Longlands areas of Belfast. (RM, CW)

The RUC/PSNI found shotguns, a rifle and a large quantity of ammunition during a raid on a house in the mainly loyalist Ballysillan area in north Belfast. Local sources say it was a UDA cache. (RUC, CW)

February 3, Sunday.
In Derry loyalists threatened to kill a named Catholic postal worker if he delivered mail in Protestant areas on the Waterside. The threatening call was made to the Samaritans after workers had decided to resume duties following UDA assurances that they were no longer under threat. (IN, DJ)

There was outrage in Derry at the unfurling of a banner from the city walls which read "PARAS 14 PADDY’S 0" (sic) as the 40,000 strong march to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Bloody Sunday approached the Bogside. Although initially the suspicion fell on off-duty members of the Parachute Regiment who are stationed at a base in nearby Ballykelly, similar graffiti was daubed on Hawkin Street and on Horace Street, close to the loyalist Fountain estate. (DJ)

February 4, Monday.
Nationalist and Unionist politicians welcomed an announcement by NIO Security Minister Jane Kennedy of a £670,000 package to rebuild and extend "peace walls" and security fences at flashpoints in north, south, east and west Belfast, as well as Portadown and Derry. The announcement came as residents of the mainly loyalist Glenbryn area complained that the northern Irish Executive was dragging its feet on pledges to make improvements promised during negotiations to end the Holy Cross blockade. (IN)

A Belfast man was fined £150 by a Derry court for taunting nationalists with sectarian abuse during the Lundy’s day celebrations in December 2000. (DJ)

Feb 4 is the anniversary of the1992 attack on the Sinn Féin centre in west Belfast in which 3 Catholics were killed. Those who died were Pat McBride (40), Paddy Loughran (61) and Michael O’Dwyer (21). One other person was critically injured but later recovered. The man who carried out the attack, RUC constable Allen Moore, was later found by the shore of Lough Neagh where he had shot himself dead. (IN)

A Catholic couple in north Belfast, both of whom are teenagers, escaped into a ditch by the Hightown Road after they were approached by two gunmen close to the spot where loyalists had murdered teenager Gavin Brett last year. (NBN)

February 5, Tuesday.
In Belfast hundreds gathered to mark the 10th Anniversary of the UDA/UFF attack on Sean Graham’s Bookmakers on the Lower Ormeau Road in which five people were killed. James Kennedy (15), Peter Magee (18), Christie Doherty (52), Willie McManus (54) and Jack Duffin (66) all died after the loyalist gunmen opened fire indiscriminately on the 15 staff and customers in the betting shop. The new memorial later suffered some minor damage by loyalists. (IN, SBN)

Nationalist and moderate unionist councillors on Craigavon Borough council, which had voted to end the flying of Union flags on public holidays in Portadown and Lurgan, were verbally abused and attacked with fireworks by flag waving loyalists. (IN)

February 6, Wednesday.
The DUP in Strabane condemned acts of vandalism carried out on school buses mainly used to carry Protestant schoolchildren. (LS) (See January list)

An Irish News exposé of the drugs trade in Belfast cited two unionist councillors claiming that UDA drug barons based in houses on the Shankill are selling up to £3,000 worth of drugs per week from each house. (IN)

Nationalists attacked a 30-year-old Protestant man on a bus in Armagh City. The bus company Translink said it would conduct an investigation. School buses in Armagh carrying children to mainly Protestant schools have been attacked with stones as they passed nationalist areas. (BT)

February 7, Thursday.
The Derry News carried a statement from Jim Boyce, President of the Irish Football Association (IFA), saying that sectarianism was killing football and should be "stamped out". The statement came after reports detailing repeated incidents of sectarian abuse being hurled at Omagh manager Roy McCreadie by Ballymena fans. (DN)

Representatives of nationalist and loyalist communities from flash point areas Duncairn Gardens, Limestone Road, the New Lodge and Tigers Bay, all in north Belfast, met at Stormont to discuss ways of improving relations. (NBN)

Belfast City Councillors approved £100,000 funding to celebrate the Queen of England’s jubilee. A Sinn Féin amendment to the motion calling for half of the money to be spent on the St Patrick’s day celebrations was defeated. The St Patrick’s day celebrations in Belfast remain un-funded by the City Council. The amendment was defeated by 24 votes to 23. (IN)

Sinn Féin Councillors accused the city’s Unionist Mayor Jim Rodgers of "sectarianism" after he stifled a debate about which party would hold the position of Mayor. Sinn Féin, the largest party in the chamber, has so far not held the position in spite of it being rotated among all other parties. (AN, IN))

Nationalist councillors and MLAs hit out at Secretary of State John Reid for postponing a review of Belfast’s local government constituency boundaries for a further five years. The move effectively lessens the impact of nationalist votes in Belfast City Council. (AN, NBN)

Nationalist youths threw an iron bar at the windows of the home of a Protestant grandfather at the edge of the Protestant Suffolk estate in West Belfast. It was the 20th such attack in recent weeks. Suffolk houses 300 Protestant residents in an overwhelmingly nationalist part of west Belfast. (AN)

February 8, Friday.
Nationalists are thought to have been behind an attempted arson attack on the Royal Bar in the mainly loyalist Sandy Row district of Belfast. The attack follows telephone threats and a recent arson attack on the nearby Sandy Row Rangers Supporters Club (which was believed to have been carried out by loyalists). A security guard escaped injury. (BT)

Loyalists were blamed for a petrol bomb attack on a house in Ballynahinch, Co Down. The couple who lived in the house were uninjured. There have been a number of attacks on Catholics by loyalists in Ballynahinch in recent years. (RUC, CW)

In north Belfast, loyalists from Tigers Bay threw a number of fireworks over the peace line at houses in Newington. (CW)

February 9, Saturday.
Representatives of ethnic minority communities in Belfast said that the findings of the report on racism in the north of Ireland were "unsurprising". The report found that there had been a marked increase in racial hatred driven incidents in recent years. (SBN, IN)

In north Belfast there were riots involving up to 80 people along the interface around the Limestone Road area after a nationalist attacked Protestant homes with a golf club and loyalist youths attacked houses in Duncairn Gardens and on the Limestone Road. Loyalists attacked a Catholic woman as she was being treated by an ambulance crew. A number of petrol bombs were thrown. (RM, CW, BBC, UTV, RUC)

February 10, Sunday.
Armed loyalist paramilitaries in combat gear and wearing balaclavas attempted to lure a Catholic taxi driver into an ambush in Artigarvan, near Strabane. (IN, RM)

February 11, Monday.
In removing a ban on RUC/PSNI officers receiving FBI training, the US government announced that officers applying for the training would be vetted to ensure that they had no links to the 1989 UDA/RUC/FRU murder of solicitor Pat Finucane or the 1999 murder of solicitor Rosemary Nelson. (See February 12.) (IN)

Loyalists instigated a "mass riot" on the Limestone road in north Belfast, leading to attacks on homes and vehicles in Clanchattan and Park End Street. The riot was initially subdued by the arrival of the RUC/PSNI but then flared up again when a group of loyalists broke away and attacked more houses and vehicles in Duncairn Gardens. (CW)

February 12, Tuesday.
On the 13th anniversary of the assassination of north Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane his family re-iterated its call for an independent inquiry, dismissing the British government’s promise of an international judge to investigate the murder as a stalling tactic to avoid having a properly constituted independent inquiry. (IN, BBC)

It was revealed that former UDA member Ken Barrett, who is believed to have been the shooter in the Finucane killing and who went into hiding in December 2001 shortly after the UDA murdered Billy Stobie, had been taken into protective custody by the Stevens Metropolitan Police team "investigating" the murder of Pat Finucane. There is speculation that this move will delay the prospect of an inquiry by a further 12 months. The Finucane family have stated repeatedly that the Stevens investigation is being used by the British government to delay an inquiry. Stobie’s trial collapsed in November 2001. Shortly afterwards he himself was murdered by the UDA following his call for an inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the murder of Pat Finucane. (See November 2001)

The Finucane family’s call for an inquiry was backed up by a hard-hitting report from the US-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR). The report is unequivocal in its finding of direct state involvement in the killing. See www.serve.com/pfc for full report. (IN, NBN, BT, AN, BBC, RTE, PFC)

Loyalists planted two pipe bombs in Maghera, Co Derry. The devices were later defused. (IN, CW)

Loyalists attacked houses in Newington Street, north Belfast with bottles, bricks, bolts and paint. Security forces investigated a suspect device found in the area. (CW)

February 13, Wednesday.
The RUC/PSNI seized a pipe bomb and parts, along with an automatic pistol and a sawn off shotgun, during searches of houses in Ballymena Co. Antrim. Local sources say the finds were loyalist caches. (IN, CW)

The Housing Executive announced small grants to improve security for people living in interface areas. The scheme was welcomed by nationalist politicians but criticised for requiring residents to get RUC/PSNI clearance. (IN)

February 14, Thursday.
In Whitewell, north Belfast, a Catholic family whose interface home comes under regular loyalist attack have been refused re-housing under the emergency SPED scheme because the RUC/PSNI have refused to confirm to the Housing Executive that the attacks are sectarian. The PFC has received a number of similar complaints about ineligibility for the SPED scheme from people living in interface areas. (NBN, CW)

There has been a 20 percent rise in homelessness in the north of Ireland due to sectarianism and paramilitary intimidation, according to Shelter, the support group for homeless people. (IN)

The Ulster Young Militants (UYM), the youth wing of the UDA, were said to be behind a spate of attacks on people and property in south Belfast. (SBN, CW)

A group calling itself the "Young Waterside Loyalists" issued death threats against six named Catholic postal workers ("Fenians") and five named Protestants ("Fenian lovers") in Derry. The threat follows a previous one which had been ‘retracted’ by the UDA. (IN)

Nationalist youths stoned a bus carrying Protestant schoolchildren as it passed the nationalist Mullacreevie Park estate on the outskirts of Armagh. (IN)

February 15, Friday.
A loyalist pipe bomb was found in the grounds of the Braid Valley Hospital in Ballymena. The device was found close to the nearby Catholic Dunclug School. (IN, CW)

The RUC/PSNI arrested Johnny Adair in Maghaberry jail. The leader of the Shankill UDA was returned to prison during the 2000 loyalist feud. He was arrested in connection with a UDA attack on a UVF linked taxi firm in the Shankill in Belfast in August 2000 (IN, BBC)

Loyalists attacked houses on Park End Street in north Belfast. (CW)

Feb 16, Saturday. In Ballysillan, north Belfast, a Catholic man was attacked by loyalists wielding an iron bar. There was also sporadic rioting along the Limestone Road area between nationalists and loyalists. (RUC, CW)

A group of loyalists in a car attempted to abduct a Catholic man walking home through the Upper Donegall Street area in Belfast. He was saved by the intervention of a local taxi driver. (RM, CW)

The RUC/PSNI found a handgun and an assault rifle during a house raid in Holywood, Co Down. A man was arrested. (RUC)

February 17, Sunday.
Nationalist youths were blamed for vandalising a Presbyterian church in north Belfast. (IN, NL)

It emerged that Sinn Féin Councillor Martin Meehan was recorded referring to loyalist protestors as "Orange Bastards" during disturbances in north Belfast linked to contentious parades. Mr Meehan has declined to retract the remarks, which drew criticism from across the political spectrum. (Obs, DN)

February 18, Monday.
SDLP MLA and mayor of Coleraine, John Dallat, told the assembly that people in Coleraine had been through three years of hell, suffering more than 200 attacks, with most of the attacks being inflicted on members of the Catholic community. (IN)

Elderly residents on the Protestant side of the interface at the bottom of the Garvaghy Road are subject to "gratuitous and random sectarian attacks" according to Jane Kennedy MP, Security Minister at the NIO. (NL)

A group of loyalist youths from Tigers Bay attacked residents and property in the Limestone Road area in north Belfast. (CW)

February 21, Thursday.
Members of Poleglass Community Watch have been harassed by the RUC/PSNI, with three people arrested and later released without charge it was claimed. The Andersonstown News reported that a gang of young "hoods" said to be members of the Ulster Young Militants (UYM), were passing information on Community Watch members on to the RUC/PSNI. One of the members of the gang is thought to be the son of a senior UFF/UDA man. Earlier in the month, members of the same gang had mugged two people using replica .38 calibre revolvers. They also attacked houses and chanted sectarian slogans. (AN)

In Derry Magistrates Court a nationalist was charged for assaulting a 15-year-old Protestant youth wearing a Rangers top. The teenager was attacked during a loyalist band parade on June 30, 2001. (DJ)

February 22, Friday.
The PSNI/RUC recovered a firearm from a car that had been involved in an accident outside Dungiven, Co. Derry. Eyewitnesses told the Derry Journal that a substantial amount of weaponry had been removed to another vehicle which arrived before the emergency services did. There has been much speculation that the occupants of the car were loyalists on their way to Dungiven to assassinate somebody, probably a Catholic. (DJ, CW)

The South Londonderry Protestant Volunteer Force (believed to be a cover name for the UVF) was blamed by the RUC/PSNI for eleven pipe bombings in the south Derry area. The attacks include one at the Swatragh GAA club, three in Maghera, one on the Garvagh to Maghera road, one on the Coleraine to Garvagh road, one in Garvagh itself and one in Kilrea. The devices had been placed in coke cans and lemonade bottles. (IN, RM, RUC, RTE)

February 23-24, Saturday-Sunday. The UDA in north Belfast staged two riots for the benefit of their "guests" from the "Yorkshire Loyalists" section of the English neo-nazi group Combat 18. According to the Sunday People the RUC/PSNI confirmed that of the UDA’s thirty extreme right wing guests, twenty were from Bradford and ten from Oldham. Both of these towns have suffered serious race riots in recent months, sparked by fascist hate groups.

News first broke of the C-18 presence in north Belfast when it was discovered that they were to visit the Somme Museum at Fernhill House. At the same time it transpired that they were to be billeted by the UDA in Tiger’s Bay. The website on which their visit to north Belfast was announced also describes Africans as "sub human scum" and calls on "whites to unite and kill Jews".

Trouble broke out at 11am on Saturday at the Limestone Road interface, close to Tiger’s Bay. Local community representatives were surprised at the outbreak, given that there had been some modest progress made during talks over previous weeks. The other striking thing was that almost all of the rioters were adults (60 in all). The gang used baseball bats, cudgels, and bricks in co-ordinated attacks on Catholic homes in Clanchattan and Newington Street. "We could clearly hear English accents and we saw a number of skinheads talking to known leaders of the UDA from Tiger’s Bay. It was as if the UDA were showing them how to run a sectarian riot", said one local representative. The riot spread across the Limestone Road, Newington and Park End Street interfaces. One Catholic resident was injured and needed hospital treatment.

There were more attacks on Catholic homes in Clanchattan Street and Parkend Street on the Sunday morning.

Nationalist residents complained that the loyalist perpetrators of the attacks were free to walk through RUC/PSNI and Army lines. The RUC/PSNI arrested three nationalists.

On Sunday night (24 February) security forces limited an attempted repeat performance of Saturday morning’s riot to the Tiger’s Bay end of the Limestone Road.

One of the houses attacked was the Parkend Street home of a Catholic mother who has been the victim of 15 sectarian attacks in the last 11 months and has been refused rehousing by Newington Housing Association because the demand for rehousing is "chronic" with over 150 urgent cases. (IN)

Combat 18 (which derives its name from the first and eighth letters of the alphabet, A and H, Hitler’s initials) and other British ultra-nationalist and white supremacist groups have long standing links to Ulster loyalism and some overlap of personnel. See Sectarian Attacks July, September, November and December 2000 and January, April and December 2001. See also www.serve.com/pfc  (SP, CW, PFC, NBN)

200 anti-agreement loyalists met at a "Grand Protestant Rally" in Newtownards, Co. Down. The meeting, at which there was a call for Unionist unity, was attended by loyalists with links to various loyal institutions, as well as DUP assemblyman Jim Shannon. The rallies are being promoted on various hard-line loyalist websites. Asked about the websites, Mr Shannon told the Sunday People: "I’m not computer literate and I don’t know nothing about any websites on this (sic)". (SP)

On October 18, 2001 The Pat Finucane Centre called on the Chief Constable of the RUC to investigate sectarian comments made by participants at a Grand Protestant rally in Ballymena on September 28, the night journalist Martin O’ Hagan was assassinated. Among the speakers that night was Mark Harbinson, a spokesperson for the Loyalist Cultural Society (LCS), who said that he was now looking forward to "B52 bombers over Dublin" in the wake of the USA’s war against terrorism.

Another speaker, Grand Protestant Committee spokesman Ray Hamill, reminded the audience that "the most evil men in history", Hitler, Mussolini and Ribbentrop were all Roman Catholics. He also accused Tony Blair of having a Roman Catholic agenda, because his wife, Cherie Blair, is a Catholic, and pointed out that the Secretary of State, John Reid, is also a Catholic.

The PFC called on the Chief Constable to investigate the rally for possible breaches of public order legislation relating to incitement to religious hatred. (PFC, DJ, BT)

In Derry loyalists petrol-bombed the car of a young Catholic who was visiting his girlfriend in the mainly Protestant Irish Street estate in the Waterside. (IN, DJ)

Loyalists from Mount Collier Street attacked Catholic homes in Park Side Gardens, north Belfast, using bolts, batteries, nuts and bottles. (CW)

February 25, Monday.
A pipe bomb was discovered in the garden of a house in Ballynure, Co Antrim. Loyalists have been blamed for leaving the device. (IN, CW)

Applications for places at Holy Cross Girl’s Primary School in north Belfast have fallen by 50pc since the loyalist protest began. (IN)

In north Belfast the UDA issued death threats against residents of the mainly Catholic Duncairn Gardens. The threat follows a weekend of attacks on Catholic homes in the area. (NBN, CW)

The London-published Times newspaper reported that Translink, the northern Irish bus company, had erected separate bus stops for Protestants and Catholics at the White City /Greencastle interface in north Belfast. (T)

February 26, Tuesday.
It emerged that five days after the murder of Daniel McColgan, armed UDA men approached Catholic contract workers at Carnmoney Cemetery, close to the place where the young postal worker was killed, and threatened them, forcing them to leave the site. The UDA also destroyed a digger and other equipment being used by the workers.

The North Belfast UDA told British opposition Northern Ireland spokesman Quentin Davies that there was no chance of the paramilitary organisation decommissioning its weapons in the foreseeable future. The Conservative MP described talks he held with the loyalist group as "useful" (NBN, IN)

Loyalist hard-liner Mark Harbinson vowed to take action against councils over the issue of flags and even target the homes of councillors "intent on eroding Protestant culture." See Feb 23. (IN)

February 27, Wednesday.
Loyalists threw a pipe bomb into the back yard of a Catholic home in Newington Street, north Belfast. (IN, CW)

February 28, Thursday.
A report commissioned by the Stormont Assembly found a significant drop in demand for places in controlled, i.e. mainly Protestant, schools, in line with a decline in the proportion of Protestants living in Belfast. (AN)

A report entitled "Chill Factor or Kill Factor?" published by the West Belfast Economic Forum concluded that: "Around a quarter of the adult population of West Belfast has experienced harassment in the workplace. Over half of the adult population knows someone who has been harassed in the workplace. Around a third of the adult population of West Belfast has not applied for jobs for fear of harassment. Over two thirds of the adult population recognises at least one area in which they would not be prepared to apply for work". The report argues that this chill factor, affecting Catholic access to employment at least as much as discrimination, is the result of real sectarian violence and the real sense of threat resulting from it, and should not be dismissed as a residual effect of the conflict. See www.wbef.org for more details.

A number of West Belfast nationalists received UVF death threats on their mobile phones. The threats, featuring UVF symbols and the words U R ON R HIT LIST, had been sent from an untraceable source. (AN, CW)

It emerged that the NIO and the UDA had held talks at the beginning of February about the state of the UDA ceasefire. (IN)

Sources:

Sectarian attacks section

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