Dear editor,
Ms Margaret Ritchie MP, MLA, and Leader of the SDLP is wrong to suggest that banning the parade past the Ardoyne in North Belfast will stop any trouble. Is she suggesting that we give into the law breakers and criminals rather than uphold the rights of law bidding citizens?
It appears to me that there is a rule for one side and not for the other here, according to Ms Ritchie. Is she suggesting that if Orangemen in Portadown or Dunloy cause trouble and break the law they will be permited to exercise their right to walk? In Dunloy we have seen Orangemen stopped from exercising their right to walk - but they don't protest against the decision of the Parades Commission through the use of violence or rioting. Violence should not pay and anyone guilty of it should face the full rigour of the law.
The rights of law bidding citizens must be upheld, not quashed. Ms Ritchie is pandering to the demands of these thugs who were bused in from across the Province to block a main road out of Belfast, to cause trouble and as a consequence cost the tax paying public millions of pounds in policing and the clear up. Perhaps the state should recoup the money spent on Policing the riot from those found guilty of causing trouble. It seems only fair.
If this parade is stopped are we going to see an end to violence, riots, intimidation and miming from republicans, dissident or not, in effort to stamp out Unionist culture and tradition? This is not the experience of Orangemen in Dunloy. The onslaught and abuse against Orangemen continues.
These thugs in Ardoyne did our country a great disservice on Monday and they deserve no sympathy and no concessions for what was a political act to stop Orangemen from exercising their right to walk up a public road.
Yours etc
Cllr John Finlay
Ballymoney
The rights of law bidding citizens must be upheld, not quashed. Ms Ritchie is pandering to the demands of these thugs who were bused in from across the Province to block a main road out of Belfast, to cause trouble and as a consequence cost the tax paying public millions of pounds in policing and the clear up. Perhaps the state should recoup the money spent on Policing the riot from those found guilty of causing trouble. It seems only fair.
If this parade is stopped are we going to see an end to violence, riots, intimidation and miming from republicans, dissident or not, in effort to stamp out Unionist culture and tradition? This is not the experience of Orangemen in Dunloy. The onslaught and abuse against Orangemen continues.
These thugs in Ardoyne did our country a great disservice on Monday and they deserve no sympathy and no concessions for what was a political act to stop Orangemen from exercising their right to walk up a public road.
Yours etc
Cllr John Finlay
Ballymoney
