The families of the 14 Bloody Sunday victims have called on Queen Elizabeth to apologise. Mr Tony Doherty, spokesman for the families, said Queen Elizabeth had insulted the dead by decorating Lt Col Derek Wilford, who commanded the paratroopers in the Bogside on the day of the killings, with an OBE in the 1973 New Years' Honours list and she should apologise. The call followed a period of two minutes' silence at the Bloody Sunday memorial on the 26th anniversary of the killings. Mr Doherty's statement was applauded by the crowd. Just before 4 p.m. the bells of St Eugene's Cathedral, which overlooks the Bogside, rang out. Nearby, at Free Derry Corner, 14 black flags fluttered in the wind. After the two minutes' silence, friends and relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims placed floral tributes at the base of the memorial.
Mr Doherty told the 300-strong crowd the British government should only apologise for Bloody Sunday when it was genuinely sorry for what happened in the Bogside 26 years ago. "However, I think there is somebody who should consider apologising at this stage for something which happened after Bloody Sunday and that is the Queen of England who decorated the murderers of our innocent dead. I would like now, on behalf of the families, to call on her to apologise to the people of Derry for what she did," he said.
Mr Doherty said: he did not want the Queen to apologise for the killings. "The Queen of England insulted the memory of the dead of Bloody Sunday by awarding Lt Col Wilford the OBE at the first possible opportunity after the massacre. "By decorating the senior army personnel involved in the slaughter on that day it was clearly a calculated insult to the nationalist people of Derry and to the families of the deceased of Bloody Sunday. I think it is a situation that can be reversed.
"I would call on the Queen to apologise to the people of this city. If she did so it would help to unpick, so to speak, all the wrongs of Bloody Sunday.
"If you read the British establishment's literature relating to Bloody Sunday, it is written in a celebratory manner. That is so because the Queen decorated senior army personnel after the killings," he said.