AN application for an Apprentice Boys parade through the Lower Ormeau Road has been rejected by the Parades Commission.
The Belfast Walker Club (Apprentice Boys) had applied for a march to bring one band and eighty supporters along the highly contentious parade route on Saturday, November 7.
The Lower Ormeau Road became a parading flashpoint following the 1992 murder of five Catholics by the UDA in Sean Graham bookmakers, which also left seven others injured.
Loyal Order parades have been prevented from proceeding over the Ormeau Bridge since 1999.
The fresh bid to parade comes after the green light was given for a Orange Order march down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown which resulted in a two-week stand-off before the parade was banned by Secretary of State Chris Bryant.
A Parades Commission determination published on Thursday stated: "On its outward route, the parade is prohibited from crossing Ormeau Bridge at its junction with Annadale Embankment, or from entering that section of Ormeau Road between the junction of Ormeau Bridge and Annadale Embankment and the junction of Ormeau Road and Havelock Bridge."
Sinn Féin MLA Deirdre Hargey has said the decision "is the right one."
“Today’s decision is the correct one, and I am glad the Parades Commission has reached this conclusion," she said.
“There was never any basis or justification for taking the community of the Lower Ormeau Road back 27 years.
“The days of nationalists being second class citizens are over.
“The days of supremacy and domination are over.
“The sectarian harassment, violence and murder visited upon these residents in the past will never be allowed to happen again.
“Sinn Féin will continue to stand fully with the lower Ormeau Road community.
“There is no going back.
“Not now. Not ever.”
