White-line picket against UDR monument

Published: 24 August, 2006

Anti-collusion campaigners staged a white-line picket on the outskirts of west Belfast yesterday, against plans to erect a Ulster Defence Regiment monument in the area.
The group An Fhírinne organised the demonstration outside Dunmurry Chapel, the spot where loyalists murdered the Belfast man Michael Power in 1987.
The UDR was heavily implicated in the death of Michael Power, who was shot in front of his seven-year-old daughter as he drove her to Mass.
UDR soldiers were questioned about his killing. A UDR checkpoint in Dunmurry had been lifted just ten minutes before the fatal shooting. The week before his death, UDR soldiers told Michael Power he would be murdered.
The victim’s father, Michael Senior, led yesterday’s protest alongside Lisburn Sinn Féin councillor Paul Butler.
Mr Butler said nationalists in Lisburn were “deeply insulted” by the unionist-dominated Lisburn city council’s plans to develop a UDR memorial in the city centre.
“If monuments are to be erected to the UDR, then it should be within the military bases from where they operated,” he said. “A city centre is no such place for such a memorial of this kind. A clear message is being sent out to Catholics and nationalists that they are not welcome in Lisburn.”