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(Editorial, Irelandclick.com)

The loyalist petrol bomb attacks on Holy Cross church at the weekend were all too predictable – to everyone, it seems, except the PSNI. When it is politically expedient, the PSNI can issue warnings and advice to people they consider to be in danger, and they can offer protection and security when it is considered necessary. But did it not occur to anyone in the PSNI that the church of Fr Aidan Troy would be a target this weekend after his call earlier in the week for the release of Seán Kelly? If not, then the state of the PSNI's intelligence is even worse than we thought.

The political response to the attacks from unionism has been muted, to say the least, which is disappointing but hardly surprising. In the wake of Fr Troy's call for Mr Kelly's release they played the man and not the ball – focusing on Mr Kelly and his crime rather than on the very worrying issue of internment by proxy that the re-arrest and jailing of the North Belfast republican throws up. That they've clammed up now is therefore hardly surprising

If the hope is that through petrol bomb attacks the community will be terrorised into silence on the issue of Seán Kelly, then loyalists are barking up the wrong tree. For it isn't just nationalists and republicans in North Belfast who are concerned about the jailing of Mr Kelly, it is a broad range of individuals and groups from across the spectrum who are concerned about human rights, justice and fair play. Five weeks after he was put back in prison, no answers have been forthcoming to the question of why – a question that has been put by many, including Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

The campaign for the release of Seán Kelly is gathering pace and it will not be hindered or slowed by crude intimidation of the kind we witnessed in the early hours of Saturday morning.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on July 25, 2005.