Amnesty International has called for Castlereagh Interrogation Centre in Belfast to be closed. In a report entitled UK: AN Agenda for Human Rights Protection, Amnesty also called for a review of the use of plastic bullets because of the "disproportionate number of plastic bullets fired at Catholic protesters as opposed to Protestant protesters" during the Drumcree crisis last year.
In west Belfast, the British paramilitary police (RUC) have warned over a dozen nationalist activists to be on the alert. The colonial police who have links with the British-backed death squads warned the nationalists in question that the death-squads had built up a dossier on their coming and going. This indicates further collusion between the British Crown Forces and the pro-British death squads as the intelligence information on nationalists given to the loyalists usually plucked directly from Crown Forces' files.
WED. JULY 2, 1997: The loyalist death squad the LVF threatened to target civilians in the 26 Counties if the Orange march is not forced through the Garvaghy Road on Sunday, July 6.
WED./THURS. JULY 2/3, 1997: Nationalists living in the Clifton Park Avenue area of Belfast came under a series of sustained attacks on their homes by loyalist gangs from the lower Old Park Road which began at 8pm and lasted until 6am the following morning.
THURS. JULY 3, 1997: The High Court in Belfast ruled that Six-County direct-ruler Marjorie Mowlam may reconsider early release of the two British soldiers convicted of killing Peter McBride in Belfast in 1992. The two Scots Guards soldiers, James Fisher (27) and Mark Wright (22) were convicted in February 1995 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Six Irishmen - Gerard Hanratty (38), John Crawley (40), Robert Morrow (37), Patrick Martin (35), Francis Rafferty (45) and Donald Gannon (34) - were sentenced to 35 years imprisonment each in Britain on charges of conspiracy to cause explosions last summer.
Two others, Clive Brampton (36) and Martin Murphy (36),were acquitted. Murphy, who had said in court that he was a member of the Provisionals' military organisation, was later re-arrested and questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. FRI. JULY 4, 1997: County Armaghman Colin Duffy, who was released by an appeal court ten months ago after serving three-and-a-half years for the killing of British soldier John Lyness in 1993, found himself once again hauled before a British High Court charged with the killing of two British colonial police officers in June of this year.
SAT. JULY 5, 1997: Republican Sinn Féin held a very successful Youth Conference in Derry city.
Youths ignored Provisionals Martin McGuinness and Mitchel McLaughlin who attempted to stop them attacking the British Crown Forces in Derry before midnight. The attacks commenced after young Republicans burned the Union Jack at Butcher's Gate.
SUN. JULY 6, 1997: The British government forced the Orange Order parade from Drumcree Church along the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, County Armagh for the third year in a row when at 3.30am British Crown Forces moved on to the road and forcibly removed nationalist protesters, causing many injuries to men, women and children. Major rioting broke out all along the half-mile long road and more than 300 Crown Forces Land Rovers were deployed to overwhelm the local population. Unrest spread to other nationalist areas as news spread of the events in Portadown.
The Provisionals tried to 'police' areas of west Belfast such as Twinbrook and Poleglass, hunting youths from the streets and ordering no attacks on the British Crown Forces.The British colonial police (RUC) attacked nationalist protesters in Bellaghy, Co Derry, firing at least one shot at them. Seven people were treated in hospital.
MON. JULY 7, 1997: Loyalist death squad member Brian Morton (34) was killed while preparing a pipe bomb beside the River Lagan tow-path near his home in Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast. A follow-up search by Crown Forces uncovered six similar pipe bombs at Seymour Hill and Dunmurry in the adjacent area. It is believed the bomb he was preparing was intended to be planted in the nearby nationalist areas of Twinbrook/Poleglass.
TUES. JULY 8, 1997: Irish newspapers published a leaked British 'Northern Ireland Office' confidential document which showed that the British had decided at least by June 20 last to force the Orange parade down the Garvaghy Road as the line of least resistance.
An RUC British policeman was shot and injured on the Garvaghy Road. Hundreds of youths were on the streets of Derry as rioting continued.
Houses in Kent Street, in north Belfast were attacked by loyalists. A mother and her young son heard their front door being sledgehammered in as they hid in terror under a bed. The attackers ran away. The woman's aunt, Maureen Love, who lives a few doors away, was also attacked.
A train was hijacked by armed and masked men at the railway station in Newry, Co Down and passengers were ordered off before the train was petrol-bombed.
In the Woodvale area of Belfast the Combined Loyalist Military Command put on a show of strength when six armed and masked men from the UVF and the UDA/UFF patrolled the area.
A man was hit by a British police (RUC) Land Rover at the Antrim Road, as young people protested against British Crown Forces.
WED. JULY 9, 1997: Brendan Morris, a nationalist from Bingnian Drive in Belfast, was hit by a plastic bullet fired by British Crown Forces as he returned from a relative's house in Lenadoon.
A Land Rover carrying members of the British Crown Forces who had been raiding houses in the Short Strand area of Belfast almost ran 26-year-old Bernie O'Neill down when the vehicle veered into Mountforde Street at high speed. The British army patrol had swooped on houses in Arran Street and spent two-and-a-half hours searching houses there as local women shouted abuse and banged binlids on the pavements. An AK47 machine gun, loaded magazine and a quantity of ammunition were found in the roof space of a vacant house.
THURS. JULY 10, 1997: The Orange Order announced that they would not march through certain nationalist areas on July 12.
SUN-FRI. JULY 6-11, 1997: In the period following the forcing of the Orange Order parade down the Garvaghy Road there were 835 attacks on British Crown Forces; 1,520 petrol bomb incidents; 476 hijackings; 60 RUC members were injured as were four members of the British army; 64 civilians were injured; almost 2,500 plastic bullets were fired at nationalists and 133 people were arrested.
FRI. JULY 11, 1997: The home of Kathleen Stewart in the Riverside South estate in Castledawson, County Derry came under attack from a mob of 40 drunken loyalists who had been celebrating an Eleventh Night bonfire in the estate. The 52-year-old mother had lived in the estate for 30 years and suffered a heart attack as a result of the attack. The family fled their home after the attack.
SAT. JULY 12, 1997: A Mark 15 mortar-bomb exploded outside Newtownhamilton RUC barracks in County Armagh. There were no injuries. A mortar launch tube and base plate were found by British Crown Forces in a follow-up search after the explosion.
A Belfast Catholic man who is married to a Protestant, who had just finished a game of golf in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim was attacked by about 20 loyalists as he left the club. He suffered severe head injuries requiring seven stitches.
SUN. JULY 13, 1997: A 300lb bomb was discovered in a flat in Southway in the Creggan Estate in Derry city.
MON. JULY 14, 1997: Dermot McNally (39), a father of two, was freed on bail by Dublin high court pending the outcome of his appeal against a court order allowing his extradition to the Six Counties.
Seán McNulty, serving 25 years in jail in Britain for taking part in a bombing campaign by the Provisionals was granted leave to appeal against his conviction because of fresh evidence from a scientific expert claiming that minute traces of explosive on a car and a jacket could have been the result of contamination by British police.
Three men appeared before North Antrim Magistrates Court charged with a petrol-bomb attack on a Catholic church hall. Colin McFetridge (24), of Hazelbank Road, Michael Sherlock (24), of Somerset Drive, and Gary Smith (23), of Long Commons, all in Coleraine, County Derry, denied setting fire to St John's Parochial Hall in Coleraine on the weekend of July 19-20. The three were remanded in custody until August 8.
TUES. JULY 15, 1997: An 18-year-old Armagh nationalist woman, Bernadette Martin was shot dead by loyalist death squad members at the home of her Protestant boyfriend Gordon Green in the village of Aghalee near Lurgan, Co Armagh.
WED. JULY 16, 1997: A 21-year-old nationalist man narrowly escaped death when two death-squad gunmen, armed with a hand-gun and a rifle, tried to gain entry to his home in Strathboy Park in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. They fired four shots through the glass door as the man who was recovering from a fractured leg hobbled to safety managing to escape his assailants.
THURS. JULY 17, 1997: Five Derry city men – Patrick Kavanagh (34), Hugh Wilkinson (44), Paul Murray (25), Bernard O'Hagan (36), and Patrick Gerard McCartney (46) – were each jailed for six years by the Special Court in Dublin for having two assault rifles, ammunition and a loaded rocket launcher at a training camp in County Donegal last year.
FRI. JULY 18, 1997: British Crown Forces carried out a blanket search in nationalist Ardoyne in north Belfast using dozens of RUC Land Rovers and British army armoured personnel carriers in an operation which began around 9am and ended at 5.30pm.
Similar search operations were carried out in Newry's Derrybeg and Barcroft areas.
SAT. JULY 19, 1997: The military wing of the Provisionals announced that an "unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994" would begin at 12 noon on the following day.
WED. JULY 23, 1997: British Crown Forces seized explosives and bomb-making equipment in Pomeroy, County Tyrone. Around eight kilos of explosives and 11 coffee-jar bombs were found in a pipe under a culvert at Corrycroar Road, Pomeroy.
FRI. JULY 25, 1997: Eight coffee-jar bombs were found in undergrowth near the Tirnaskea Road in Pomeroy. No arrests were made.
A consignment of 20 handguns with ammunition was found by Customs officers at Dublin Port.
SUN. JULY 27, 1997: The body of a nationalist youth, James Morgan, from Annsborough near Castlewellan, was found in a water-filled hole at Clough, Co Down. He had been beaten to death in a sectarian killing.
MON. JULY 28, 1997: A 26-year-old man, Norman James Coopey was charged with the murder of nationalist James Morgan. He was remanded in custody to appear at the Maze prison on August 13 next.
Patrick Doyle, who lost four members of his family in the 1974 Dublin/Monaghan bombings, began a case in the Dublin High Court to seek the release of information in the possession of the 26-County police concerning their investigation into the bombings.
THURS. JULY 31, 1997: A massive car bomb was placed at the Carrybridge Hotel and marina near Lisbellaw, on the Erne River in County Fermanagh. A warning call was received by the hotel at 9pm and the hotel was cleared.
Adam Ingram, Stormont "security" minister, said in a written answer in the British House of Commons that 2,510 plastic bullets were fired in the first two weeks in July.
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