While it is accepted that removing the paramilitary murals which are already in place across both loyalist and nationalist districts in Belfast and elsewhere will be a difficult process, it can only be disappointing that a new contentious monument has appeared in the city.
The latest display in the Shankill Road area prominently features the crests of the illegal UDA and UFF and is intended to commemorate a notorious sectarian gunman, Stephen McKeag, who died from an apparent drugs overdose in 2000.
It replaces a smaller and much less elaborate version on the same site at Hopewell Crescent, which as we reported yesterday is owned by the Housing Executive and is therefore public property
If a small number of individuals insist on marking out territory so provocatively in any section of the community, ways of bringing them before the courts will have to be found.
