When 13 civil rights demonstrators in Northern Ireland were killed by British soldiers on 30 January 1972 ( known as Bloody Sunday ) , '' The Guardian '' said that " Neither side can escape condemnation . " Of the protesters , they wrote , " The organizers of the demonstration , Miss Bernadette Devlin among them , deliberately challenged the ban on marches . They knew that stone throwing and sniping could not be prevented , and that the IRA might use the crowd as a shield . " Of the army , they wrote , " there seems little doubt that random shots were fired into the crowd , that aim was taken at individuals who were neither bombers nor weapons carriers and that excessive force was used "
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
The Guardian