The Fort Worth Press - MLA seeks inquiry into reported sectarian gestures on Ormeau Road

A SINN FÉIN MLA has condemned reports that loyalist band members made sectarian gestures at the scene of a Troubles massacre where five Catholic civilians were murdered. Deirdre Hargey has now called on police and transport authorities to investigate the claims following Saturday's Belfast Walker Club parade on the Ormeau Road.

Band members were not permitted to walk along a section of the road where five civilians, aged from 15 to 66, were fatally shot by loyalist paramilitaries in a 1992 attack on a bookmakers. The Belfast Walker Club parade from Ballynafeigh Orange Hall to Donegall Pass has not been permitted to cross the Ormeau Bridge and ensuing section of the lower Ormeau Road since 1999.

Upon reaching Ormeau Bridge on Saturday, band members boarded buses to ferry them through the restricted section of the route where the Sean Graham bookmakers is situated. It is alleged that individuals on a private Translink bus, which was accompanied by police vehicles, made five-finger gestures while passing the bookmakers.

Hargey has now called on the PSNI and Translink to investigate the reports, which come weeks after a memorial to the victims was defaced in what police called 'a sectarian motivated offence'. "Reports of loyalist bandsmen making sectarian gestures mocking those murdered in the Sean Graham bookies massacre are extremely concerning to the lower Ormeau community," stated the South Belfast MLA.

"Tensions in this community are already high, with the memorial to the five victims attacked twice in recent months. "over 30 years after the massacre, families are still having to put up with sectarian intimidation.

"The PSNI and Translink must ensure these reports are urgently investigated. "The individuals of the lower Ormeau Road deserve to live in peace, free from sectarian harassment."

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