The following list of sectarian and other hate-driven incidents and attacks is from 1 through 30 June 2003. 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.
1 June, Sunday. Loyalists were blamed for vandalising cars belonging to Catholic mass-goers in the mainly Protestant village of Newbuildings, on the outskirts of Derry. Rangers' fans are believed to have been responsible for an attack on a Celtic football shop in the centre of Derry. (IN, DJ, DN)
Coleraine SDLP councillor John Dallat said that loyalist bandsmen had turned the mainly Catholic village of Garvagh, Co Derry, into a "sea of urine", during a loyalist parade. He told the Irish News that paramilitary trappings were also displayed at the parade. (IN, DJ)
The Reverend David McIlveen, a minister in the Paisleyite fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church, vowed to protest against the showing in Belfast of a performance by the London Gay Men's Chorus. "Sodomy is really a sexual perversion", he said. " It is totally abhorrent and lowers the moral standard". He said he deplored the moral decline that he claimed was initiated by the peace process in its attempts to accommodate "every vile practise". (CW, AN)
In north Belfast, Catholic teenagers were forced to run a gauntlet of loyalist stone throwers because of the detour imposed on them by the locked gates separating Hightown Rise from Collinbridge Gardens. Residents want the gates opened. (CW, NBN)
2 June, Monday. PSNI Superintendent Tom Haylett, district commander for Larne, told the Irish News that the number of loyalist attacks on Catholics in the County Antrim town had fallen from 40 attacks a month to five from 2002 to 2003. The news was welcomed by politicians from across the political spectrum, but nationalist sources also pointed out that one of the reasons Catholics weren't being attacked as much was because they were staying away from public places, only socialising in 'Catholic' bars and moving out of mixed religion estates into mainly Catholic ones. (UTV, IN)
In north Belfast, loyalists smashed the windows of a minibus carrying Catholic parents to pick up their children from Holy Cross School. (AN, IN)
Anti-Protestant sectarian graffiti appeared daubed in large letters on a wall in the mainly nationalist Lower Ormeau Road in south Belfast. (IN, CW, SBN)
As sporadic violence erupted in interface areas in north Belfast, Catholic youths attacked a Protestant man in Ardoyne, leaving him with head injuries. (IN, CW, NBN)
4 June, Wednesday. A row erupted in Derry after DUP MP for East Derry Gregory Campbell called for unionists to fly the Union and Ulster flags this summer. Nationalists complained that the move was intimidating to Catholics living in mixed areas and would raise tensions. (DN, LS, BT)
Independent Unionist Councillor Willie Wright told Ballymena Borough Council that the putative disbandment of the notoriously sectarian Royal Irish Regiment (RIR - formerly the UDR), combined with a reduction in British Army personnel, would result in an Irish Army invasion of the north in a "Vietnam scenario". (IN)
In Belfast the High Court granted Maghaberry prisoner Stiofán O Dalaigh leave to judicially review a decision by the Governor of the prison to force him to attend vocational training on Good Friday, a day of religious observance. (AN, IN)
5 June, Thursday. In north Belfast, republicans were blamed for vandalising a memorial to 16-year-old Thomas McDonald, the young Protestant killed when he was knocked off his bicycle during sectarian rioting in north Belfast in July 2001. Politicians from all sides condemned the attack. (IN, NBN)
6 June, Friday. The Derry Journal reported that a Catholic father, out with his four-year-old and two-year-old sons in Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone, was assaulted by a gang of loyalists as he tried to calm a sectarian argument. His four-year-old son was bruised in the incident. (DJ)
In Ardoyne, north Belfast, sectarian clashes erupted after the Parades' Commission ruled to allow a contentious east Belfast Apprentice Boys Parade to go ahead with conditions. According to local sources the clashes were provoked by nationalist youths throwing stones at Protestant homes in Glenbryn. Loyalists then stoned and petrol bombed Catholic homes. One man was seriously injured during the clashes. (ST, AN, CW, UTV)
7 June, Saturday. The Irish News reported that work was underway to heighten the peace lines in Bryson Street in east Belfast and Lanark Way in the west of the city. (SBN, IN)
Petrol bombs were thrown at two houses on the Stiles estate in Antrim. (IN, PSNI)
A stash of pipe bombs was found by PSNI in undergrowth close to the Arellian nursery school at Bentham Drive, near the loyalist Sandy Row in south Belfast. (PSNI, UTV, IN)
8 June, Sunday. In Portadown, loyalists attacked buses carrying Monaghan GAA supporters home from a football match. One woman received an eye injury. (IN)
On the now mainly Protestant Leckagh estate in Magherafelt, up to eight loyalists, who were armed with iron bars and baseball bats, assaulted a young Catholic married couple. The husband was left with partial blindness, a number of broken bones and stitching to his head after the attack. The couple have been trying to get re-housed since a hoax bomb was left at their house. Local sources said that only a handful of Catholics remained in the estate. Three men were later charged in connection with the attack. (IN, CW)
9 June, Monday. According to figures revealed to the Andersonstown News, the Northern Irish Civil Service allocates just 25.5% of its top-tier posts to Catholics. Overall, Catholics occupy 42.5% of the 29,480 positions, with clerical positions being roughly representative of the Catholic proportion of the population. Of the overall number, just 32 positions are occupied by people who identify as being from Black or Ethnic Minority (BEM) communities. The proportion of Catholics employed by the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) stands at 29.3%, while the proportion employed by the Northern Ireland Office stands at 27.1%. A leaked report on fair employment in Lisburn City Council revealed gross underemployment of Catholics. (AN, CW, OFMDFM)
A mixed religion couple and their two young children were evicted from the mainly loyalist Steeple estate in Antrim. The couple had at first been threatened by the LVF and so approached local representatives of the PUP, the political wing of the UVF, in order to have the threat challenged. However the man was subsequently assaulted in his home by four masked men claiming to be from the UVF, and he was ordered to leave or be killed. Local sources say that this brings to 80 the number of Catholics intimidated out of their homes in Antrim since May 2002. (AN)
At the High Court in Belfast, Justice Kerr ruled that the parents of pupils of Holy Cross School in north Belfast could take a case against the British Secretary of State and the then Chief Constable of the RUC for failing to protect their human rights during the loyalist blockade. Parliamentary scrutiny into a row over the effectiveness and independence of the quasi-autonomous Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), set up under the 1998 Agreement, centred in part on the appropriateness of correspondence received by the Chief Constable from head Commissioner Brice Dixon in relation to the NIHRC's provision of financial assistance to the Holy Cross parents. See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt/jtrights.htm (14th report) for more details (NBN, CW)
10 June, Tuesday. An Ardoyne man was charged with having a notebook containing names and addresses of members of a Belfast nationalist club. He was charged under anti-terrorist legislation. (IN)
A row erupted between the PSNI and nationalist residents in Antrim Town when the police removed loyalist paramilitary flags from lampposts in advance of the US Special Olympics team's arrival. Nationalist residents welcomed the move but berated the PSNI for not acting on their complaints about flags. Nationalist residents fear that sectarian tensions in Antrim could lead to another Holy Cross-type situation where Catholic pupils at St Malachy's High School have been subjected to an increasing number of attacks. Loyalists threatened to withdraw from mediation talks after the flags were removed. In Limavady, Co Derry, the PSNI, refusing to remove flags, said that the flags issue was a "community issue". (IN, AN)
London Lord Mayor, Ken Livingstone, confirmed that he had had his life threatened by loyalist paramilitaries for coming out publicly in support of republicans during his period as leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 to 1986. (UTV, IN)
12 June, Thursday. Following a request from Carrickfergus Borough Council to English Councils to back an inquiry into the suicide of RIR Trooper Paul Cochrane from Belfast, Neville Sanders, Conservative leader of Peterborough City Council in England, told a meeting: "I want an apology for the hundreds of English soldiers that have been killed by the Irish over the last 25 years" Sanders later explained to the Belfast Telegraph: "The troubles in Northern Ireland have been of your own making, there have been enough English soldiers killed in Northern Ireland to fill a doomsday book. The Irish should learn to live in peace and bloody well get on with it… We are quite happy for Northern Ireland to fuck off and run its own affairs. If you have a dispute, do not involve us… I am fed up with paying taxes to cover lazy bastards in Ireland. " (UTV, IN, BT)
A 20-year-old man from Antrim was given a suspended sentence for having a Sinn Fein representative's address and car registration written down. (IN, UTV)
14 June, Saturday. In west Belfast, loyalist youths in a stolen car shouted "up the UFF" before driving at a group of Catholic teenagers standing at the bottom of Divis Street. The car crashed into traffic lights and the occupants ran away. (AN)
15 June, Sunday. The PSNI seized a 1,200lb fully primed car bomb, believed to have belonged to the Real IRA, on Derry's Waterside. Four men were later arrested by the Gardai and PSNI. (IN, UTV, LS, PSNI)
17 June, Tuesday. An Algerian man, imprisoned in Maghaberry jail while waiting for his asylum application to be processed, began a hunger strike in protest at the conditions in which he was being held. He was the second asylum seeker to go on hunger strike in Maghaberry jail. Lawyers for another man awaiting asylum have applied for a writ to allow them to see their client, who is in the prison hospital being treated for what is believed to have been a mental breakdown. The Home Office told the Irish News that it had no plans to stop holding asylum seekers in Maghaberry. (Multi Cultural Resource Centre, PFC, IN)
An industrial tribunal heard that two Portuguese workers at a poultry firm who had been sacked for taking sick leave had been paid well below the rate given to the local workforce. (UTV, PA)
18 June, Wednesday. In south Belfast, loyalists threw a pipe bomb into the Donegall Avenue home of two black South African women. Although the living room window had been smashed, the device did not explode. Anti-racist groups have expressed concern at the apparent resurgence in a race-hate brand of loyalism, stoked-up by British neo-Nazi groups recruiting in loyalist areas. (IN, Multi Cultural Resource Centre, PFC, PSNI)
19 June, Thursday. In West Belfast, the Orange Order rejected a five-point compromise plan from the residents of the mainly nationalist Springfield Road whereby the order could march past Catholic homes unopposed. Loyalist paramilitary groups had festooned sections of the Springfield Road with paramilitary flags and graffiti ahead of the parade. (IN, AN, CW)
In Finaghy, south Belfast, a Chinese family suffered a violent and racially aggravated robbery in their home. During this "prolonged and vicious robbery" three generations of the family were treated for injuries after a series of serious assaults and violent threats. There is increasing fear within the Chinese community that Chinese families are being singled out for violent burglaries. (IN, PFC)
20 June, Friday. Violence broke out in Ardoyne and other parts of north Belfast after the Orange Order's Tour of the North parade passed through nationalist areas. (IN, NBN)
In Dublin, the inquest into 27 of the 33 people killed by loyalist bombs in Dublin and Monaghan on 17 May 1974 was reopened. Collusion between British security forces and the 'loyalist' gang which carried out these and other sectarian killings has always been alleged, and evidence of this is expected to form a part of the Barron Report, due to be published in September of this year. For further information on the bombings and the campaign for a proper inquiry see www.dublinmonaghanbombings.org. (UTV, IN, PFC)
21 June, Saturday. Masked loyalists attacked the home of a Catholic family of five living in the mainly loyalist Torrens Gardens area of north Belfast. The father condemned the PSNI for not apprehending the men who then smashed up the family car, which was parked in front of the PSNI station in full view of several CCTV cameras. The family vowed to leave the area. A crowd of nationalists attacked a Protestant home in nearby Torrens Court. Local sources said that the crowd had managed to beat their way into the hallway of the house. (IN, UTV)
22 June, Sunday. A 63-year-old Catholic woman abandoned her home in the Leckagh estate in Magherafelt after loyalists pushed a note through her door warning all Catholics to leave the estate. She had lived there for 18 years. "I remember when the Leckagh estate was equally mixed, but in the last five years nearly every Catholic family has been forced out" she said. (IN, CW)
23 June, Monday. It was reported that the Lower Shankill Community Association was to be scrutinized by funders from the European Union Peace II programme who had sponsored the group to the tune of £124,000. The announcement of the scrutiny came after allegations by the BBC's Panorama programme that Denis Cunningham, the group's development worker and member of the UDA-aligned Ulster Political Research Group, had been the masked UDA/UFF spokesman who read out a UFF statement just hours after the murder of Catholic postman Daniel McColgan in January 2002. (IN, NBN)
Loyalists shouted "Fenian bastards" as they threw a vodka bottle through the living room window of a young Catholic family living in Serpentine Road, north Belfast. (NBN)
At a Fair Employment Tribunal a Protestant employee accused Northern Ireland Railways of reverse discrimination to increase the number of Catholics in supervisory posts. (UTV, IN)
Two pipe bombs and a quantity of ammunition were found packed into a lunchbox outside a school on Ladyhill Road, Co Antrim. (UTV, PSNI)
24 June, Tuesday. A gang of loyalists mobbed and stoned a car carrying Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness in Ballymoney, Co Antrim. (IN, DN, UTV)
In Glengormley, loyalist bandsmen taunted residents of the mainly Catholic Church Way with comments about murdered Catholics Daniel McColgan and Gerard Lawlor. (IN, NBN)
Constable Alan Leckey of the PSNI was charged with dangerous driving in relation to an incident after the Twelfth Orange parade on the Springfield Road in Belfast in 2002 during which a PSNI Landrover was driven at high speed at nationalist youths. (UTV, PSNI, IN, PFC)
Loyalists paint bombed and then left a hoax pipe bomb at the home of SDLP councillor Billy Leonard in Portstewart, Co Derry. (UTV, IN)
25 June, Wednesday. Belfast Crown Court sentenced 26-year-old Roy Walker from Carn Gardens, Glengormley, to five years imprisonment for allowing the UFF/UDA to store ammunition in his garage. (UTV, BT)
27 June, Friday. Four young men from County Antrim were given sentences ranging from three years suspended to two years with a years probation for being part of a gang that went "looking for fenians" on three separate nights in December 2001 after spending time drinking. Two of their victims required hospital treatment, a third suffered bruising. (UTV, IN)
North Belfast UFF/UDA member and former Special Branch agent Ken Barrett was charged with the murder of Pat Finucane. (UTV, BBC)
28 June, Saturday. On the Springfield Road in west Belfast, hundreds of residents staged a peaceful protest at the Orange Order's parade past the houses of Catholic residents with whom they had refused to negotiate. The parade broke every one of the restrictions placed on it by the Parade's Commission; music was played while the march filed past Catholic homes, hangers-on followed the parade through the peace line and an array of paramilitary flags, banners and paraphernalia, including a banner honouring UVF sectarian murderer Brian Robinson, were on display. Many of the bandsmen also wore paramilitary insignia. A bus carrying loyalist bandsmen was attacked as it left the vicinity. There were no reported injuries. (AN, UTV)
A 27-year-old Catholic man was stabbed in front of his two-and-a-half-year-old son by loyalist bandsmen who had debussed at the Catholic Stanhope estate in north Belfast after the controversial Springfield Road Orange March. (AN, NBN)
29 June, Sunday. A group of Catholics walking home from a bus stop in Ballynahinch were attacked by a loyalist gang on Lisburn Street. One man suffered serious head injuries. (UTV)
30 June, Monday. In east Belfast loyalists built a 50-foot bonfire on the site of demolished Housing Executive houses, close to St Matthews Catholic Church at the corner of the Catholic Short Strand enclave. Around the fire they erected a corrugated iron fence bedecked with paramilitary flags. (AN)
At Belfast Crown Court, Lord Justice McCollum called for an inquiry into how part-time RIR lance-corporal Glen Graham Stronge, who was said to have "mental problems", had been allowed to carry his personal protection weapon, which he used to kill Catholic Colin Philip Foy in Fivemiletown, Co Tyrone in October 2001. (UTV)
Police in Belfast said they were investigating a second racist pipe bombing of a home belonging to black South Africans in the loyalist Donegall Avenue area of Belfast. (UTV, PSNI)
Sources:
AN: Andersonstown News
BT: Belfast Telegraph
BBC: BBC radio and television news, BBC online, Radio Foyle
CW: Local community workers
DJ: Derry Journal
DN: Derry News
IN: Irish News
IT: Irish Times
ITN: Independent Television News
LI: London Independent
LS: Londonderry Sentinel
NBN: North Belfast News
NL: Newsletter
OB: Observer
PA: Press Association
PFC: Pat Finucane Centre
RM: RM Distribution
PSNI: Police Service of Northern Ireland (RUC) press office.
SBP: Sunday Business Post
SBN: South Belfast News
ST: Sunday Tribune
UTV: Ulster Television