REPUBLICANS have announced plans to hold a previously banned anti-interment parade through Belfast city centre.
Organisers say up to 5,000 people and 10 bands will take part in the Anti-Internment League (AIL) march on August 6.
It has been organised to coincide with the 46th anniversary of the introduction of internment in 1971, during which hundreds of nationalists across the north were jailed without charge.
Organisers say the parade will also highlight what they describe as “internment by remand, via revocation of licence and through miscarriage of justice”.
The march is to leave Ardoyne in north Belfast and make its way through Oldpark and onto the Cliftonville Road before travelling towards North Queen Street.
It will then travel along Donegall Street, Royal Avenue and Castle Street in the city centre before travelling to Dunville Park on the Falls Road.
A similar parade, which started in Andersonstown in west Belfast, was banned from going to Belfast city hall for a rally last year.
Dozens of PSNI officers and Land Rovers blocked the route close to the city centre.
In 2015 an AIL parade, which left from Ardoyne in north Belfast, was also stopped by police in the Oldpark area after it failed to clear the city centre before a deadline set by the Parades Commission.
In previous years marchers were allowed to pass through the city centre.
In 2013 there was serious rioting on Royal Avenue after loyalists opposed to the parade clashed with the PSNI.
The following year a similar republican parade passed off without major incident.
Organisers say this year’s parade is expected to start at 11am.
Anti-Internment League spokesman Dee Fennell said: "We are hoping yet again to focus minds on the internment by remand rather than the focus being on the march.
"We are not marching for the sake of marching and faux outrage by loyalists who have to travel into the city centre is raising tensions in Belfast.
"Belfast city centre is the only shared space in Belfast."
Mr Fennell said his group is seeking access to the city centre in the same way as Irish language and gay rights groups.
"We look forward to the rights of republicans being respected on the 6th of August.”
