Lisburn is new focus of sectarian attacks

The Stoneyford Inn, near Lisburn, has been abandoned by its owners due
to a campaign of sectarianism by loyalists attached to the Orange
Volunteers.

According to reports, up to 30 Catholic families are in the process of
moving from the village as a direct result of loyalist intimidation.

A Sinn Fein delegation led by Lisburn councillor Paul Butler is to meet
Dublin government officials over the growing number of sectarian
attacks carried out by unionist paramilitaries on Catholics in the
Lisburn area.

In the past two weeks, one Catholic man was severely beaten by a
20-strong gang of loyalists as he played golf while last weekend two
teenagers and a 26-year-old man were attacked by a UDA at Seymour Hill
in Dunmurry.

One of the teenagers, a 17-year-old girl, had a gun put to her head
during the attack.

The girl and her two male companions, aged 14 and 26, needed hospital
treatment after they attacked by up to 15 members of the UDA in
Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast at around 5.30pm on Sunday 27 July.

The three were set upon in the car park of a vacant supermarket in the
Queensway area of Dunmurry and ordered to lie on the ground by the
gang, who were wearing balaclavas and were armed with a handgun,
baseball bats and golf clubs.

As they lay on the ground the two males were set upon while the gunman
held the gun to the girl's head as she was assaulted.

The two teenagers were treated in hospital for cuts and bruising while
the 26-year-old man suffered a broken ankle and multiple cuts and
bruising to his head and body.

The girl's parents, who spoke with Sinn Fein's Paul Butler, said their
daughter is now terrified.

Lagan Valley Sinn Fein councillor Paul Butler described the attack as
blatantly sectarian and said it was part of a coordinated and vicious
anti-Catholic campaign being waged on the Catholic community by the
UDA.

"This was not some group of kids. These were armed and masked UDA men.
The political representatives of the UDA are continually appearing in
the media assuring people that the UDA is on cessation, but the reality
on the ground for Catholics in places like Dunmurry and Lisburn is very
different."

Butler added that local political representatives have a role to play
in stopping these sectarian attacks but unfortunately they have failed
to play any part in ending these onslaughts so far.

"Instead of confronting sectarianism in Lisburn and Dunmurry, unionists
have decided to institutionalise it in Lisburn Council. The exclusion
of nationalists from civic positions is only one step removed from the
violent incidents we have witnessed in recent weeks."

Butler called on nationalists to be very vigilant.

On 20 July, a 21-year-old Catholic was seriously injured after he was
attacked by a gang of 20 loyalists wielding golf clubs, iron bars and
poles painted red, white and blue as he played golf at Aberdelghy Golf
club, outside Lisburn. In November last year, West Belfast Catholic
Harry McCartin was viciously beaten and nailed to a fence by loyalists
in the Seymour Hill estate in Dunmurry.


BELFAST CLASHES

Two men were arrested for riotous behaviour after sectarian clashes at
a Belfast interface for the ssecopndd sucessive night last night.

A lorry was hijacked in the Broadway roundabout area in west Belfast
and set alight in nearby Glenmachan Street.