Maskey calls on police "attacks" to stop

Sinn Féin chief whip Alex Maskey has claimed that the police and British army "are going to kill members of this community" if they continue to "attack" the Short Stand area.

Mr Maskey said: "The community had been under attack since Saturday. The UVF or the PSNI are going to kill members of the community if they continue… Houses have been bombed, homes have been wrecked. Several young people have been victims of plastic bullets."

Mr Maskey went on to claim that the Short Strand community has been targeted by the PSNI and army over the past four days.

At a press conference, Mr Maskey produced a bullet-point document setting what he argued were the worst excesses of the security forces over the weekend and Tuesday. In his document, Mr Maskey claimed that the security forces had, amongst others things, imposed a curfew on areas of the Short Strand, damaged nationalist homes in raids and shot nine people with plastic bullets in an effort to raise tensions in the community.

The Sinn Fein representative concluded: "There is deep anger in this community that the response of the PSNI to the orchestrated UVF attack this weekend was to raid the homes of nationalists. This is a community under siege."

He then called on the police to stop "attacking" the Short Strand community.

In the wake of the violence, UUP representative for the area Sir Reg Empey said previous security ministers had "dragged their feet" over his demands for security fences to be set up in the area. He went on to say that the weekend's violence had strengthened his argument.

The violence started on Saturday night at around midnight when a member of the loyalist community claimed to have been beaten up by nationalist residents. This was denied by a Sinn Féin representative.

(GMcG)