Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill have arrived at a police station in Belfast for interview by officers investigating their participation in an allegedly unlawful protest in Portadown last month.
The demonstration on the predominantly nationalist road was staged amid efforts to prevent an Orange Order parade passing down the route from nearby Drumcree Church.
Ms McDonald and Ms O’Neill were among several Sinn Féin politicians to receive letters from the Police Service of Northern Ireland asking them to attend Musgrave Street station for interview.
Orangemen make their way from Drumcree Church where police formed a barricade to prevent them entering the Garvaghy Road (Brian Lawless/PA)
PA Wire
Under parading laws in Northern Ireland, protests must be notified to, and approved by, the Parades Commission adjudication body.
Police are carrying out an investigation into the unnotified protest on the Garvaghy Road on the day the parade was meant to proceed and said invitations to attend interviews had been sent to individuals “reasonably suspected of committing offences”.
A Parades Commission decision to allow the Orange Order parade to proceed down the Garvaghy Road for the first time in almost 30 years prompted a two-week stand-off at the site of what was a notorious parading flashpoint during the Troubles.
The parade was ultimately unable to take place because of significant numbers of protesters on the Garvaghy Road, leading Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant to overturn the commission’s decision and ban the procession.
PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has previously made it clear there would be “consequences” for those found to have broken the law.