SINN FEIN reported banners calling for the murder of Catholics on a loyalist bonfire in Belfast to police last night as a hate crime.

MP for West Belfast Paul Maskey called for political and community leaders to use their influence to have the deeply offensive banners removed and confirmed Sinn Fein would be raising the matter in a meeting with police.

One of the banners reading “Fuck your Ballymurphy massacre inquiry” mocked the families of those killed in 1971 when British army paratroopers shot 11 people dead.

Another reading “Kill all taigs” was also placed on the bonfire in Belfast’s loyalist Highfield estate where fires were lit ahead of yesterday’s Orange Order marches.

Cars were torched by masked men in and around Belfast in a night of violence in the region which saw youth in Derry clash with police for a fifth consecutive evening.

Mr Maskey said: “There can be no place either for the display of naked sectarianism which advocates the killing of anyone of this society or for the burning of election posters and national flags.”