A crowd estimated at up to 10,000 people marched in Derry yesterday to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the Bloody Sunday killings, when 27 civilians were shot, 13 of them dead, by British army paratroopers on January 30th, 1972. George Jackson reports.
The march followed the route of the 1972 civil rights march, from the Creggan through the Brandywell and into the Bogside, where a rally was held at Free Derry Corner.
Yesterday's march took place two days after the final witness gave evidence to the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday killings. That inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, was announced seven years ago this month by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and was completed at a cost of £154 million. The inquiry's report is expected to be handed over to the British government this summer.
Mr John Kelly, a spokesman for the relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims, told the rally that this month's jailing of a local man who had refused to give evidence to the inquiry, stating he wasn't there, was "an absolute perversion of justice".
Martin "Ducksie" Doherty was jailed for six months by the High Court in Belfast for being in contempt of the inquiry. He is the only person to be jailed as a result of Bloody Sunday.
Taking part in his first Bloody Sunday commemoration march was Mr Billy Leonard, a former RUC officer who joined Sinn Féin last January, and who is now a member of Coleraine Borough Council. Asked to comment on the refusal of Sinn Féin national chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin to describe as a crime the 1972 killing by the Provisional IRA of Jean McConville, Cllr Leonard said many people were using Ms McConville's death for political gain.
He said "not too many people were talking about her" in the initial stages of the peace process.
"Many people have now used this case for political gains, particularly the likes of Michael McDowell," Mr Leonard said.