"WE'RE not second class citizens any more, we're third class ones, said community activist, Mr Gerard Rice, as RUC Land Rovers swept in to seal off the lower Ormeau area last night.
The small Catholic enclave in south Belfast was saturated with around 150 RUC and British army vehicles, blocking every street. There were 500 police alone in the area, locals reckoned.
Officers stood at the top of each street deciding who could and couldn't leave their homes and preventing outsiders from entering the area.
The Lower Ormeau Concerned Community group had been planning to protest on Ormeau Bridge at 9 p.m. last night. Up to 1,000 people from across the city and beyond were expected. They were due to hold a prayer service and then, locals said, they would sit down on the bridge and stay there all night. The Orange Order is due to march this way early today and the nationalists wanted to block the route.
"For God's sake, I'm an elected representative. What are you doing? Why are you arresting me, shouted the west Belfast Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Alex Maskey. He was dragged off, kicking and screaming, by police in University Avenue.
Residents who had been out of the area when the RUC arrived, and were now trying to return, had a difficult time. One woman couldn't reach her home. "The police asked me for ID to prove that I lived in the lower Ormeau. They said I needed a driving licence or something else but I'd didn't have anything with me. I didn't know there would be trouble." The woman was forced to stay with friends in another part of the city for the night.
At Hatfield Street, a woman with a pram begged the RUC to let her back into her home. After 10 minutes of negotiating, she was allowed through.
Other residents, who were indoors when the RUC arrived also had their movements restricted. "I needed to go to the shop to get milk," said one woman. The police wanted to know how long I would be. They told me if I wasn't back in 10 minutes I wouldn't get in at all."
"The RUC are animals" said another woman. "They think they're hard men, treating us like that." Her friend said that people should throw water bombs at police from their bedrooms. "No, it's petrol bombs we need," said one young woman.
The RUC prevented many people from leaving the action group's headquarters so as not to cause a breach of the peace", an officer explained.
Mr Rice himself was stopped and questioned every time he left the building to go back onto the streets and urge people to be calm. "I am allowed out," he said. "But I have to abide by their rules. I must leave on my own and I have to agree not to cause a disturbance.
"It's disgraceful. What do they think I'm going to do, loot and burn local shops? It's only loyalists that behave like that. We respect our businesses around here."
The lower Ormeau residents were still on the streets late last night. Most said that the RUC would have to drag them away in order to let the Orangemen march through today. "It takes more than a curfew to break our spirit," said a resident. "We don't give up easily around here."