A MARCH to commemorate the events of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland 42 years ago faces being rerouted by police amid fears of counterdemonstrations and disorder.
Police Scotland has warned the plans by Irish Republican groups to parade past the Cenotaph in Glasgow city centre created a "significant risk to public safety", with a rival protest planned by Loyalists.
The city council will now meet next week to decide whether to impose a change of time or an alternative route on the parade, scheduled for Sunday, January 26 and organised by the West of Scotland Bands Alliance.
A report on the matter states: "There is clear written evidence that a counter demonstration against this procession will be mounted. What is not clear is the extent and size of this demonstration and whether any attempt will be made to disrupt the procession."
The counter-protest is being arranged by a recently-formed militant Loyalist group called the Regimental Blues, which met with Police Scotland about its plans on Wednesday.
A statement on its Facebook page reads: "We are now at the last chance saloon with this and at a stand-off until a final decision is made."
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the council has forwarded a petition by the Regimental Blues regarding a senior authority official to Police Scotland.
A spokesman claimed many comments on the petition were abusive and threatening.
No one from West of Scotland Bands was available.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article