British Paratroopers open fire on Roman Catholic civil rights supporters in Derry, Northern Ireland, on January 30, 1972, killing 13 in what became known as Bloody Sunday.
The demonstration began as a peaceful, but illegal, demonstration by some 10,000 people organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in opposition to the British government’s policy of interning suspected members of the IRA without trial. The incident remained a source of controversy for decades, with competing accounts of the events. In 2010 the Saville Report, the final pronouncement of a government inquiry initiated by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, concluded that none of the victims had posed any threat to the soldiers and that their shooting was without justification.
