Police have refused a Belfast city council request to help dismantle a controversial loyalist bonfire that is believed to pose risks to public health and to energy supplies.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said on Thursday that letting the bonfire go ahead was less risky than trying to stop it – a decision that Sinn Féin said would be giving in to mob rule.
The towering pyre on Meridi Street off Donegall Road – one of approximately 300 bonfires that are to be lit on Thursday and Friday in loyalist commemorations – is on a site that contains asbestos and is close to an electricity substation that powers two hospitals
On Wednesday a city council committee voted to send contractors to dismantle the bonfire and asked police to help, creating a dilemma for police because paramilitary groups warned of “widespread disorder” if the pyre was removed. Pat Sheehan, a Sinn Féin assembly member, said authorities could not let “mob rule” prevail.
A police statement on Thursday said it had decided not to intervene after consulting Northern Ireland’s environment agency, electrical utility, fire and rescue service, Belfast health and social care trust and Belfast city council.
It said: “Following comprehensive engagement with all relevant stakeholders, an evidence based assessment, and taking into consideration all of the risks associated with the removal, we have determined that police should not assist the proposed actions of Belfast city council.”
The decision examined the legality, necessity and proportionality of police intervention, said the statement. “This involved carefully balancing potentially competing statutory and human rights obligations.”
“The consensus of the meeting was that the risk of the bonfire proceeding as planned was lower and more manageable than the intervention of contractors and the proposed methodology of dismantling the bonfire. The police service will continue to work with partners and communities to manage the remaining risks surrounding this bonfire.”
The bonfires are part of the annual celebration of the victory of King William III’s Protestant forces over Catholics at the battle of the Boyne in 1690.
A senior cleric added his voice to condemnation of a separate bonfire, in the County Tyrone village of Moygashel, that features an effigy of a refugee vessel with a dozen mannequins in lifejackets and placards that say “stop the boats” and “veterans before refugees”.
John McDowell, the Church of Ireland archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, called the effigy racist and threatening. “It certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity or with Protestant culture and is in fact inhuman and deeply sub-Christian. I hope that the many people from other countries, who live in that area … can be reassured that it does not in any way represent the feeling of the vast majority of their neighbours.”
An Irish national flag is also on the Moygashel pyre, which is to be lit on Thursday night.
