An Irish republican march is to be banned from Belfast city centre next weekend.
The parades commission, which adjudicates on marches across Northern Ireland, has ruled that the Anti-Internment League parade should be barred from entering central Belfast.
The commission said its decision was in part influenced by violence that erupted last year at the start of the march in north Belfast, and the refusal of the parade’s organisers to engage with it.
It also said there was “extremely high risks of public disorder” if the march was allowed to converge on Belfast city hall. The commission said the organisers had breached times imposed upon them for the last march.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland had to use water cannon to quell trouble in the north of the city last year, as officers prevented the march from leaving the republican Ardoyne district. Three men and a woman were arrested after petrol bombs, stones and bottles were thrown at police lines.
In a statement the parades commission said: “The deliberate breach of the timing condition, result in public disorder by the parade participants and/or supporters last year, has increased significantly the risks of the proposed parade this year as has the organisers’ refusal to engage with the commission.”
The Anti-Internment League has said it will mount a legal challenge over the parade commission’s ruling. The group includes a number of dissident republican organisations some of whom – though not all – support the “armed struggle” of the New IRA and other paramilitary organisations.
