PSNI looking at bonfire sites where sectarian effigies, flags and posters were allegedly set on fire before 12 July parade
Police in Northern Ireland are investigating a number of “hate crimes” linked to effigies, flags and posters at loyalist bonfires that were lit at midnight to mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne.
As thousands of Orangemen and their supporters take to the streets on Wednesday morning for the annual 12 July parade, the PSNI said it was looking at a number of bonfire sites where nationalists claimed offensive, sectarian imagery was on.
They included one in east Belfast where a picture of Martin McGuinness, the late former IRA chief of staff and deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, was placed inside a mock coffin.
Declan Kearney, Sinn Féin’s national chairman and negotiator during the recent deadlocked talks with the Democratic Unionists aimed at restoring power sharing, challenged unionist politicians to condemn the “hatemongers” who burned the McGuinness effigy along with Irish tricolour flags and his party’s election posters.
Other material on a bonfire site in County Armagh included a racist banner mocking the black Glasgow Celtic footballer Scott Sinclair.
A PSNI spokesman said: “We take hate crime very seriously and actively investigate all incidents reported to us.”
Meanwhile the Northern Ireland fire and rescue service said there was more than a 20% increase in the number of call-outs its crews had to make overnight at bonfires across the region.
Firefighters responded to 40 fires in loyalist districts, and in one case had to douse homes with water that were in danger of catching fire close to a bonfire in east Belfast.
There was a heavy security presence at Crumlin Road at what is the most contentious loyalist parade in recent years.
Orangemen will file past the nationalist Ardoyne district in north Belfast on Wednesday, but under an agreement secured last year that the loyalists will not return home via the same route.
A relatively peaceful 12 July may improve the political atmosphere in the region before fresh talks in autumn designed to return cross-community government to Northern Ireland