Armed police have been stationed outside as the Palestinian flag was raised shortly after 12am on Tuesday, December 2, following a divisive council vote that passed by 32 votes to 28
Armed police have reportedly been deployed around Belfast City Hall as the Palestinian flag was hoisted following a council vote on the contentious issue.
Reports suggest that law enforcement officers were positioned on all sides of the building when the flag was raised just after midnight on Tuesday, December 2, with onlookers describing the scene as ‘chaos’, reports the Mirror.
The flag’s raising comes in the wake of a Sinn Fein motion to hoist the flag at the earliest opportunity, which was passed by 32 votes to 28 during a council meeting on Monday evening. An amendment proposed by the Alliance Party, suggesting the City Hall be lit up in the colours of Palestine in January instead of flying the flag, was earlier defeated by 49 votes to 11.
Last month, the council had voted by a larger majority to fly the flag on City Hall on November 29 to commemorate the UN international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. However, the flag was not flown after the council received legal advice following a unionist move to initiate a call-in mechanism for the proposal to be reconsidered.
A special council meeting was convened on Monday to revisit the matter. Unionists voiced their anger after the vote’s result was announced, with the TUV warning of emergency legal proceedings in an attempt to prevent the flag from being raised.
In a statement released on Monday evening, Sinn Fein announced: “Sinn Fein has secured agreement for the Palestinian flag to fly tomorrow at Belfast City Hall. In the face of Israel’s barbaric and inhumane genocide, we must continue to do all we can to show solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza.”
However, DUP group leader on the council, Sarah Bunting, labelled the swift move to hoist the flag from Tuesday as a “scandalous abuse of process”. She expressed her concern: “This is a deeply divisive issue in Belfast, yet Sinn Fein and those who backed this move have shown no regard for the views of others and have simply railroaded their position through.”
She further warned about the potential impact on the local Jewish community: “Our small Jewish community will understandably view this as deeply intimidating and as a move that risks stoking antisemitism in our city. It is dangerous, it is cynical, and it must be called out for what it is.”
Bunting criticised Sinn Fein’s approach: “For decades, Sinn Fein has sought to marginalise and silence those who disagreed with them. If they believe unionists will simply accept this kind of heavy-handed, intolerant behaviour today, they are badly mistaken.”
TUV Councillor Ron McDowell condemned the council’s decision, stating it had “disgraced itself”. He added: “The days of unionists quietly accepting such cavalier disregard for their rights – or watching the small Jewish community in our city being trampled upon – are over. My position remains clear and unchanged: the only flag that should fly from City Hall is the national flag of the United Kingdom.
“But if members of council truly cared about human rights in the Middle East, they would recall that in the aftermath of the October 7 massacres (Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023), the nationalist and republican alliance in Belfast blocked any effort to light City Hall in the colours of the Israeli flag.
“Everyone can see the hypocrisy. It is nauseating and it must – and will – be called out. Every means at our disposal will be deployed to oppose this.”
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