Palestinian flag raised over metropolis corridor after controversy | UK | News | EUROtoday

The Palestinian flag has been raised over Belfast City Hall after a vote was handed by councillors on the ‘deeply divisive’ difficulty. The flag was lifted shortly after 12am on Tuesday, December 2 after a Sinn Fein movement to boost the flag on the following out there day was handed by 32 votes to twenty-eight at a council assembly on Monday night.

An Alliance Party modification that proposed illuminating the City Hall within the colors of Palestine in January as an alternative of elevating the flag was earlier defeated by 49 votes to 11. The council had voted by a bigger majority final month to fly the flag on City Hall on November 29 to mark the UN worldwide day of solidarity with the Palestinian folks.

But the flag was not flown after the council obtained authorized recommendation following a unionist transfer to provoke a call-in mechanism for the proposal to be reconsidered. A particular assembly of council was held on Monday to re-discuss the matter.

While Sinn Fein welcomed the end result of the vote, unionists expressed anger, with the TUV warning of emergency authorized proceedings in a bid to cease the flag being raised. In an announcement on Monday night, Sinn Fein mentioned: “Sinn Fein has secured agreement for the Palestinian flag to fly tomorrow at Belfast City Hall.

“In the face of Israel’s barbaric and inhumane genocide, we must continue to do all we can to show solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza.” Councillor Sarah Bunting, DUP group chief on the council, mentioned the try to boost the flag as rapidly as potential from Tuesday onward was a “scandalous abuse of process”.

She mentioned: “This is a deeply divisive issue in Belfast, yet Sinn Fein and those who backed this move have shown no regard for the views of others and have simply railroaded their position through. Our small Jewish community will understandably view this as deeply intimidating and as a move that risks stoking antisemitism in our city.

“It is dangerous, it is cynical, and it must be called out for what it is.”

“For decades, Sinn Fein has sought to marginalise and silence those who disagreed with them. If they believe unionists will simply accept this kind of heavy-handed, intolerant behaviour today, they are badly mistaken.”

TUV Councillor Ron McDowell mentioned the council had “disgraced itself”. He mentioned the elevating of the flag trampled on the rights of the minority and proven complete disregard for due course of.

He added: “The days of unionists quietly accepting such cavalier disregard for their rights — or watching the small Jewish community in our city being trampled upon — are over. My position remains clear and unchanged: the only flag that should fly from City Hall is the national flag of the United Kingdom.

“But if members of council truly cared about human rights in the Middle East, they would recall that in the aftermath of the October 7 massacres (Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023), the nationalist and republican alliance in Belfast blocked any effort to light City Hall in the colours of the Israeli flag.

“Everyone can see the hypocrisy. It is nauseating and it must – and will – be called out. Every means at our disposal will be deployed to oppose this.”