Police were reportedly stationed on all sides of Belfast City Hall when the flag was lifted shortly after midnight, as a vote was passed by councillors on the “deeply divisive” issue
Armed police are reportedly stationed outside Belfast City Hall as the Palestinian flag has been raised after a vote was passed by councillors on the “deeply divisive” issue.
According to reports, police were stationed on all sides of the building when the flag was lifted shortly after 12am on Tuesday, December 2 – with eyewitnesses describing the scene as ‘chaos’.
The hoisting of the flag comes after a Sinn Fein motion to raise the flag on the next available day was passed by 32 votes to 28 at a council meeting on Monday evening. An Alliance Party amendment that proposed illuminating the City Hall in the colours of Palestine in January instead of raising the flag was earlier defeated by 49 votes to 11.
The council had voted by a larger majority last month to fly the flag on City Hall on November 29 to mark the UN international day of solidarity with the Palestinian people but the flag was not flown after the council received legal advice following a unionist move to initiate a call-in mechanism for the proposal to be reconsidered.
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A special meeting of council was held on Monday to re-discuss the matter. Unionists expressed anger after the outcome of the vote was revealed with the TUV warning of emergency legal proceedings in a bid to stop the flag being raised.
In a statement on Monday evening, Sinn Fein said: “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.”
DUP group leader on the council, Sarah Bunting claimed the attempt to raise the flag as quickly as possible from Tuesday onward was a “scandalous abuse of process”. She said: “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 said the council had “disgraced itself”. The councillor 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.”
