Tensions high in North Belfast

Tensions in the Whitewell area of North Belfast are running high in the lead up to a loyalist band parade through the area on Saturday 4 September.

Nationalist residents fear trouble after a number of incidents last weekend, which saw mourners at a Catholic funeral threatened by loyalists, a number of nationalist residents attacked during a loyalist parade and a Catholic man assaulted by the PSNI.

In a separate incident, two loyalist bandsmen were stabbed as they left a pub in the early hours of Saturday morning 28 August. The members of the Whitewell Defenders band were attacked at the junction of the Shore Road and Gray's Lane. Four men aged in their late teens and early twenties were later arrested by the PSNI.

During the funeral procession for a Catholic woman from the Whitewell, a group of loyalists armed with machetes and baseball bats emerged from the Graymount Estate and shouted sectarian abuse and threatened mourners.

The funeral was leaving St Gerards Church on the Antrim Road on Saturday 28 August when the confrontation occurred.

A mourner told An Phoblacht that the arrival of the gang of loyalists armed with their deadly weapons was "very serious. This gang of loyalists just turned up out of the blue, armed with these weapons and started to threaten people and shout sectarian abuse at the mourners. It was very sinister."

Later that day, as a loyalist band parade made its way along the Shore Road on Saturday afternoon, bandsmen broke ranks with the parade and began attacking nationalist residents at the bottom of the Whitewell Road.

A number of residents suffered bruises and cuts.

According to Sinn Féin's Kathy Stanton, nationalist residents are to register a complaint with the Parades Commission about the behaviour of the loyalists and the inaction of the PSNI during the incident.

Stanton also pointed out that the PSNI warned residents who were filming the parade, in case the loyalists were in breach of the Parades Commission determinations, to desist.

And a Catholic man from the Old Throne Park area of Whitewell was arrested and charged with assault after he confronted the PSNI who stood by as loyalists attacked his home on Sunday 27 August.

The man told An Phoblacht he received a telephone call from his wife that their house was under attack from the loyalist White City.

The man, who doesn't want to be named, said he returned home and saw the loyalists attacking his home with bricks and bottles, in full view of the PSNI.

The man went to the PSNI and asked them to put a stop to the sectarian attack but he says the PSNI turned on him and hit over the head with a baton and knocked him to the ground.

The man received two black eyes, a busted lip and serious bruising to his chest and wrists. He was also charged with disorderly behaviour and assaulting two members of the PSNI.

"This is ridiculous. How could I assault anyone when I am handcuffed and lying on the floor of a PSNI Land Rover," he said.

In the latest sectarian attack in the area, a plaque dedicated to a young Catholic man who was killed in a motorbike accident was vandalised by loyalists.

The sectarian attack happened on the Mill Road in Newtownabbey in the early hours of Wednesday 1 September.