Seven nights of rioting on the streets of the Northern Irish capital have left 74 police officers injured, in what observers say is the country’s worst violence in years. Late Thursday, the White House appealed for calm. “We are concerned by the violence in Northern Ireland,” President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement, adding that Biden hoped for a “secure and prosperous Northern Ireland in which all communities have a voice and enjoy the gains of the hard-won peace.”
While Brexit has caused simmering underlying tensions, the seven nights of violence in Belfast were sparked by a decision from Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service to not prosecute 24 high-ranking members of Sinn Fein, the nationalist party, who had breached COVID-19 regulations by attending a funeral for Bobby Storey, a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group that played a key role in the violence of the Troubles.
“What really infuriated people was the decision not to follow up on the breach of COVID-19 rules at the funeral,” says Laura Sudulich, a researcher at the University of Essex who studies post-conflict societies. “It was like there was one rule for certain people and one rule for everyone else. That feeling really sparked the tensions.”
Seven nights of rioting on the streets of the Northern Irish capital have left 74 police officers injured, in what observers say is the country’s worst violence in years. Late Thursday, the White House appealed for calm. “We are concerned by the violence in Northern Ireland,” President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement, adding that Biden hoped for a “secure and prosperous Northern Ireland in which all communities have a voice and enjoy the gains of the hard-won peace.”
While Brexit has caused simmering underlying tensions, the seven nights of violence in Belfast were sparked by a decision from Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service to not prosecute 24 high-ranking members of Sinn Fein, the nationalist party, who had breached COVID-19 regulations by attending a funeral for Bobby Storey, a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group that played a key role in the violence of the Troubles.
“What really infuriated people was the decision not to follow up on the breach of COVID-19 rules at the funeral,” says Laura Sudulich, a researcher at the University of Essex who studies post-conflict societies. “It was like there was one rule for certain people and one rule for everyone else. That feeling really sparked the tensions.”
https://time.com/5953714/northern-ireland-riots/