Northern Ireland violence drives out immigrant families

Nationalist youths clash with police in the Ardoyne area of Belfast on 12 July. Photograph: Cathal Mcnaughton/Reuters

Immigrant families from East Timor fled a Catholic area of Northern Ireland on Friday night when loyalist rioters tried to attack nationalist homes, a Sinn Fein councillor said today.

"Around 100 loyalists attacked police who prevented them attacking nationalist homes," said John O'Dowd, who is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The families from East Timor packed their bags and ran from their homes in Portadown, Co Armagh on Friday night, when the area was engulfed in violence, he said.

"They packed their bags, so distressed were they at the violence. Their neighbours tried to reassure them that they would be safe in their homes but they left," he told Reuters.

A significant number of families from East Timor have settled in the Northern Irish town, where they work in the food packing industry alongside many Poles and Portuguese.

For several hours, police were attacked by people armed with petrol bombs, bricks, bottles, fireworks and other missiles in the latest violence surrounding the high point of the loyalist marching season.

The police fired around 20 plastic bullets and arrested three people. They confirmed that loyalists provoked the violence when a planned peaceful protest was hijacked by a violent minority.

The Mayor of the local Craigavon council, Democratic Unionist Alan Carson, condemned the violence.

"This does not do anyone any good. People have a right to live peacefully and feel safe in their own homes. The violence we saw last night is something we assigned to the history books," he said.

In recent days, nearly 50 police have been wounded and dozens have been arrested during violence in both loyalist and republican areas surrounding the annual 12 July parades.

More than 500 parades were held on Tuesday across Northern Ireland, the high point of the Orange Order marching season celebrating the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The majority passed off peacefully but they sparked outbreaks of street violence.

View the original article here

Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist, jailed for protest violence

Charlie Gilmour arrives at Kingston crown court with his father, David Gilmour. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The son of the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has been jailed for 16 months after admitting violent disorder during a student fees protest in central London last December.

Charlie Gilmour, 21, was seen hanging from a union flag on the Cenotaph and later leaped on the bonnet of a Jaguar car forming part of the royal convoy taking the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall to the royal variety performance that was attacked by demonstrators. He also set fire to papers outside the supreme court in Parliament Square and was seen kicking at a window of a Topshop branch in Oxford Street and later carrying the leg of a mannequin. Students attacking the store caused ?50,000 damage.

Gilmour, now short-haired, dressed in a suit and accompanied by his mother, the writer Polly Samson, and David Gilmour, had earlier buried his face in his hands when the court was shown video footage of him at the demonstration shouting: "We'll eat fire and ice and destruction because we're angry, very fucking angry. We refuse to do anything we're told. They broke the moral law. We're going to break all the laws. Arson!"

He admitted the offence of violent disorder, but denied hurling a bin at the vehicle, though Judge Nicholas Price, at Kingston crown court, said he was satisfied that Gilmour had been responsible.

The court was told that the public-school-educated second year history undergraduate at Girton College, Cambridge – who had said he did not realise the significance of the Cenotaph – had drunk whisky and taken LSD and valium in the hours before the demonstration.

His barrister, David Spens QC, told the court that Gilmour was an intelligent and gentle young man who had turned to the substances over previous months after being rejected by his biological father, the poet and artist Heathcote Williams. Spens said: "For a period of time starting around August 2010 he was, by his own admission, on something of a continual binge, taking a range of illicit and illegal drugs. It seems this was born more out of unhappiness than hedonism, precipitated by the emotional rejection after meeting Heathcote. In his own words, he spent most of the week, effectively every week, tranquillised out of his mind."

Arguing that Gilmour should be spared a jail sentence, Spens said that he had stopped using drugs, cut down his drinking and started a course of psychotherapy.

Gilmour had spent the day with protesters in Parliament Square before moving on to Regent Street and Oxford Street. After being photographed swinging from the Cenotaph – which he described as a "moment of idiocy" – he was caught on camera alongside the royal convoy.

Gilmour, of Billingshurst, West Sussex, admitted swinging from the flag on the Cenotaph although he was not charged with that. He was arrested four days after the demonstration after publicly apologising for swinging on the war memorial.

Passing sentence, Judge Price accepted that Gilmour's antics at the Cenotaph on Whitehall did not form part of the violent disorder, but accused him of disrespect to the war dead. "Such outrageous and deeply offensive behaviour gives a clear indication of how out of control you were that day. It caused public outrage and understandably so."

View the original article here