Northern Ireland journalists face attacks and death threats, says Amnesty report
Reporters have been physically assaulted and told they will be shot, stabbed, raped or blown up, making Northern Ireland the most dangerous place in the UK for journalism, a report said on Tuesday.
It documented more than 70 attacks and threats since 2019 but found there were no prosecutions for threats from paramilitary groups, the most significant source of the intimidation.
'Journalists in Northern Ireland are facing a sustained campaign of threats, intimidation and violence from armed groups, which makes it the most dangerous place in the UK to be a reporter,' said Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International UK's Northern Ireland director.
'They are being threatened, attacked and even killed for shining a light on paramilitary groups and others who seek to exert control through violence. This creates a climate of fear that many assumed was consigned to history when the Good Friday agreement was signed.'
The lack of prosecutions has emboldened paramilitaries – loyalist and republican – and fostered a sense of impunity, Corrigan said.
'When journalists are under attack, press freedom is under attack. The state must create a safe environment where journalists can work freely and report without fear of reprisals. It is currently failing to do so.'
Journalists' cars have been damaged – in some cases battered with poles laced with nails – and some reporters have been given ultimatums to leave Northern Ireland. Two journalists have been killed, Lyra McKee in 2019 and Martin O'Hagan in 2001.
Some of those interviewed for the 96-page report, titled Occupational Hazard? Threats and Violence Against Journalists in Northern Ireland said they had protected their homes with bulletproof windows and doors and alarms linked to police stations.
Police visited Allison Morris, the Belfast Telegraph's crime correspondent, nine times between December 2023 and October 2024 to warn about threats from paramilitary or criminal groups. 'I'm convinced someone's going to kill me at some point,' said Morris.
'I always think I'll never die of natural causes. Most of the time, I pretend that the threats don't annoy me, but clearly, they do. This is not a normal way to live.'
The report urged the Stormont administration to establish a media safety group, comprising police, prosecutors and journalists and urged the police to review the procedural response to threats and to pursue investigations that lead to successful prosecutions.
Ch Supt Sam Donaldson said the Police Service of Northern Ireland took journalism safety seriously and would consider the report and its recommendations. In recent years the PSNI has developed a joint strategy with local editors and the National Union of Journalists, said Donaldson.
'Journalists do not have to tolerate threats and crimes as part of their role. That has been our recent, consistent message.'
Seamus Dooley, the NUJ's assistant general secretary, said it was not normal that journalists lived in fear decades after the Troubles, adding: 'That really is not the sign of a normal functioning democracy.'
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Irish Times
21 hours ago
- Irish Times
British-Irish Relations in the Twenty-First Century: A strong examination of the Belfast Agreement's legacy and the impact of Brexit
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Sunday World
a day ago
- Sunday World
Ex-IRA bomber Marian Price sues Disney over Jean McConville murder scene in ‘Say Nothing'
Convicted IRA volunteer sues after TV drama shows her character shooting mother of 10 in the head Former IRA bomber Marian Price is suing Disney over a scene in the drama series Say Nothing, which she claims 'falsely portrays her as having carried out the execution-style murder of Jean McConville by shooting her in the back of the head'. Price (71), who is suing under her married name McGlinchey, is seeking damages, including aggravated and punitive damages, for defamation against Disney over its Disney+ show, according to the plenary summons lodged in the High Court in Dublin. Punitive damages are awarded in defamation cases where a defendant has engaged in malicious, outrageous or vindictive conduct. Price is seeking an injunction restraining the defendants from further publishing the same or similar allegations about her. She also wants an order 'for the immediate removal of the relevant scene of Episode 9, depicting the alleged murder'. The case was lodged by Price's solicitors, Phoenix Law, on July 2. Since then, Dentons — the UK firm that recently represented the BBC in its unsuccessful defence of a defamation action by Gerry Adams in Dublin — has come on record to represent Disney and Minim UK Productions, a co-defendant in the case. While the Disney+ series is based on the 2018 book by Patrick Radden Keefe of the same name, the book did not provoke legal action from Price. Price's lawyers have said that while Keefe's book was suggestive in claiming she may have shot Ms McConville, the dramatisation was explicit in portraying that this happened. Price was jailed for her part in a bombing campaign in London in 1973 before being released in 1980. She was later a vocal critic of the Good Friday Agreement. The series depicts her sister, Dolours Price, as one of three IRA volunteers who have one gun available to kill Ms McConville. The kidnapped woman is shown on her knees while desperately reciting the names of her 10 children. Dolours Price is shown deliberately shooting wide of Ms McConville, before her sister takes the gun and completes the killing with one shot. Marian Price is seeking damages for defamation The 'disappearance' of the mother of 10 from her home in the Divis Flats in Belfast in 1972 is one of the IRA's most notorious crimes. Her body was only recovered in 2003, from a beach in Co Louth. Radden Keefe's book is partly based on the Belfast Project at Boston College, which involved former paramilitaries speaking about their experiences of the Troubles. Among those who taped interviews that were to be released only after their deaths were former IRA volunteers Dolours Price and Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes. Both claimed that former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams had authorised Ms McConville's disappearance, something Adams denied. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor plays the older version of Brendan 'The Dark' Hughes The Price sisters are central characters in Radden Keefe's book and the Disney adaptation, in which they are played by Lola Petticrew (Dolours) and Hazel Doupe (Marian) in their younger years. Maxine Peake plays the older Dolours up to her death in 2013, and Helen Behan plays the older Marian. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor plays the older version of Brendan Hughes. Dolours Price is depicted as being disgusted at witnessing Gerry Adams carrying Hughes's coffin after his death in 2008. At the end of every episode of the Disney+ series, text is shown saying that Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA or participating in IRA violence. After the final episode, the text says Adams denies any involvement in the murder of Ms McConville. It also says Marian Price denies any involvement in the murder of Ms McConville. Hazel Doupe as Marian and Lola Petticrew as Dolours Price in 'Say Nothing' on Disney+ In 2014, Marian Price pleaded guilty to providing a mobile phone that was used by the Real IRA in 2009 to claim the attack in which British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey were killed outside Massereene Barracks in Co Antrim. She has always strongly denied any involvement in the murder of Ms McConville since Radden Keefe's book was published. Speaking to the Sunday World before the Disney+ series was made, the US author and journalist said he stood over his reporting. 'I wouldn't have published Marian's name and suggested that she murdered Jean McConville if I had even one per cent doubt that it was true,' he said. Radden Keefe is credited as an executive producer on the Disney+ show. I stand by my reporting. I'm quite transparent about my process of deduction 'It would be unconscionable to make such an accusation if I was not completely certain. But I was certain,' he told reporters. 'She has denied it, though I would note that it took her five months, from when I initially approached her solicitor for comment back in May, to do so. 'I stand by my reporting. I'm quite transparent about my process of deduction in the book, so readers can decide for themselves whether they are persuaded.' Peter Corrigan, one of Price's solicitors, told the Sunday World last year that the TV show was less ambiguous than the book about the central allegation about his client. 'Who is his source on this claim?' he asked. 'The book is one thing — it's more ambiguous — but the Disney show is categoric about Marian murdering Jean McConville.' Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 28th
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Michelle O'Neill: ‘The British state killed local people. Those moments contribute to who you are'
As Michelle O'Neill walks in her home village of Clonoe, east Co Tyrone , there is not a person she passes who does not say hello or a driver who fails to wave from a passing car. O'Neill greets them all in return. Eventually, The Irish Times inquires as to whether she has adopted her own special wave like Queen Elizabeth II's ? 'They do tease me about that,' she says with a laugh. Clonoe is where the First Minister of Northern Ireland and Sinn Féin vice-president spent her formative years and where she still lives. As O'Neill shows us around, it is evident how her family, her village and her community have shaped the person she is and the politician she has become. READ MORE 'I'm Michelle who's from this area. There's no airs and graces, but sure, this is my home. This is where I feel comfortable.' At the heart of this staunchly republican village is Clonoe O'Rahillys GAA club with modern pitches and a redeveloped clubhouse, which also houses the community centre. A plaque commemorates its official opening by the then MP for the area and O'Neill's 'mentor', Martin McGuinness , in November 1998. Michelle O'Neill standing by the pitch at Clonoe O'Rahillys GAA club near where she grew up in Co Tyrone. Photograph: Alan Betson Was she here that day? 'Absolutely.' She was 'a young mummy, my child was four … it was, 1998, the Good Friday Agreement , such a moment of hope and opportunity for people, and the club being opened captured, in a very local way, that new beginning and that new hope'. Outside, she shows off the Gaelscoil, the village's business park and her favourite walking route along the canal path. 'This is part of my mindfulness, my relaxation, keeping myself right, going out walking with friends … get a bit of head space to talk about things that aren't in the political sphere,' she says. 'Because we're all human at the end of the day, even those of us in politics, so I like that – I need that, actually, to keep doing what I'm doing.' She was born in Fermoy, Co Cork , in 1977. The family returned to nearby Coalisland when O'Neill was a baby, then to her father's homeplace of Clonoe to a new row of bungalows her father helped build and where her mother, Kathleen, still lives. In 1968, discrimination in the allocation of housing in east Tyrone helped spark the first civil rights march, from Coalisland to Dungannon. 'When we got the opportunity to move, my mummy didn't believe my daddy, actually. She said to Daddy, 'Brendan, we're not the kind of people who can buy a home' and he said, 'Yes, we can'.' O'Neill speaks warmly of a 'good family life' with 'strong role models around us', including her mother who gave up work so Michelle could go back to school after she became pregnant at 16. O'Neill has spoken previously about how she was prayed over by some at her Catholic grammar school, how she sat her GCSEs a few days after giving birth and then the 'huge fuss' made about her returning for A-levels. Michelle O'Neill: 'Partition failed my community, failed every community across the island.' Photograph: Alan Betson 'It was difficult,' she says, but also says 'I suppose it does make you more resilient' just as 'being a young mummy shapes who you are, being responsible for this beautiful little being and wanting the world to be better for her'. From an early age, O'Neill was aware she 'grew up in a family, in a society, in a community that was discriminated against, that was treated with inequality on a day-to-day basis'. There was 'a lot of loss in the community, many moments when the British state killed local lads, local people, local people that weren't much older than me … all those moments contribute to shaping who you are'. Among them was her cousin, Tony Doris, one of three members of the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade who were on 'active service' when they were shot dead in a SAS ambush in nearby Coagh in 1991. O'Neill was 14. 'It was horrendous for his immediate family, obviously, and all these things have lasting impacts, and that's the same for every family that lost. My experience, unfortunately, was felt by far too many people.' O'Neill's father, Brendan Doris, was an IRA prisoner and local councillor. 'He was such a community activist. He was a man who was very much wedded to his community, and I liked what he did. I liked how he helped people. So I suppose, maybe it was always organic that I would go down the route that I took in terms of going into politics.' Even then, her goal was 'Irish unity. I think partition failed my community, failed every community across the island', she says. 'But I'm somebody who was gifted the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. I had just turned 21 and that gave me that precious gift of peace. 'It made me determined that I am going to go out and I'm going to work this because this is a democratic pathway towards the unification of this island and I am going to grab it. That's really been my journey ever since.' O'Neill joined Sinn Féin in her early teens. In 1998 she officially started working for the party. She was elected a councillor in 2005, then to Stormont in 2007. Michelle O'Neill with fellow Sinn Féin politicians Francis Molloy, left, and Martin McGuinness following their election in 2007. Photograph: Eric Luke A former minister for agriculture and then health, in 2017 she replaced McGuinness when he stood down as deputy first minister. Last year, she became First Minister, making history as the first nationalist to do so. As she walked down the grand staircase into the Great Hall at Parliament Buildings and then into the Chamber, she allowed herself a smile. 'There's no doubt it was a moment of pride, personal pride, pride for my community, for my family,' she says. 'I suppose I felt the weight of the moment of history on my shoulders, I felt the expectation on my shoulders, but that in itself is a motivator. 'You know you have to go out and give it your 100 per cent and I hope that's what people can see. I give it my 100 per cent every day.' O'Neill's maiden speech, delivered shortly afterwards, was about setting the tone for her term. She promised to be a 'First Minister for all' and 'inclusive and respectful' of everyone regardless of background or identity. 'I've fulfilled that pledge,' she says. She lists examples, including her attendance at Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and King Charles III's coronation, a PSNI graduation and the official Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Belfast last November. Michelle O'Neill shakes hands with Liz Truss, left, then British prime minister, in September 2022 during at a service for the late Queen Elizabeth II at St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast. Photograph: Liam McBurney/Getty Was this difficult, given her own experience? 'Personally, given the experience of my community at the hands of the British state, then, yes, from that perspective it is. 'But is it the right thing to do to try and reconcile the people on this island? Yes, it is. 'So, for me, that outweighs any personal feeling.' But equally she says: 'I go to republican commemorations because that's who I am. I've never shied away from that. I don't distance myself from that.' Can she understand why this is difficult for many, particularly those who lost loved-ones to the IRA? 'I do think about it,' she says. 'I understand there are many people out there that have a different narrative than me and I respect that that's their view. It's also perhaps their lived experience, but mine's different.' But, she says, part of reconciling is 'actually understanding that it's okay – we may have different narratives, but we need to respect that is actually the case. 'That understanding is what allows me to say what I can say – what I said whenever I became First Minister – because I absolutely am sorry that anybody lost a loved one. I'm so sorry we lived in a society that [had] a conflict. 'But the job of leadership of 2025, the job of leadership since the Good Friday Agreement, all of my life's work, is about building on what was achieved then [in 1998] and continuing to drive us into the next 25 years.' For O'Neill, this means a united Ireland. She stands by Sinn Féin's aim of a Border poll by 2030, but is 'less fixated on a date' for unity, 'more interested in that the actual planning and preparation is done and that we get it right'. She says: 'The Irish Government really, really need to treat this with urgency … give people the tools in which to make an informed decision.' How is this to be achieved, given that neither the Irish nor the British government – which must ultimately call the poll – have given any indication they intend to do so in the near future? 'Well, governments say many things … then they're forced to take a position just because of the public demand for it. We will continue to make the case,' O'Neill says, arguing that even her own election as First Minister 'speaks to the change that's happening around us' and, coupled with potential of elections ahead, 'all these things can become the tipping point for Irish unity'. She believes there are 'many people' – including unionists – 'open to being persuaded … and they'll be convinced because it's in their best interests. The argument to be made is that there is something better for all of us.' UK prime minister Keir Starmer will not, she says, have 'the luxury of burying his head in the sand and ignoring the call for constitutional change'. In the meantime, as the joint head – with the Deputy First Minister, the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly – of the four-party Northern Executive, there is much work to be done. Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and First Minister Michelle O'Neill speak to the media last February after Stormont ministers agreed a programme for government. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA 'Emma and I are completely different characters, completely different backgrounds, completely different outlook, but also very understanding of the fact that we have to work together to try and lead the Executive.' Challenges facing Stormont include the crisis in the health service, the worst waiting lists on these islands, and a lack of funding almost across the board. Often, the public perception is that little practical is achieved amid much political point-scoring. 'There are lots of things we work on together and there are differences, but you have to manage those things. That's just the nature of it.' O'Neill is critical of the 'lack of leadership in political unionism, particularly when it comes to issues of bonfires' and its 'faux outrage at times around particular issues'. 'The constant attacks on the GAA tell people who support the GAA and people from an Irish national identity that they're not welcome in this place. Political unionism would need to think about that.' But O'Neill defends the Executive's record: 'We're 18 months in … we have a programme for government, the first in over a decade. We've prioritised health waiting lists and we've put finances in that direction. We've been able to deal with public sector pay.' She also cites 'a whole new economic strategy … advances on childcare, advances on a strategy to end violence against women and girls'. On two major infrastructure projects, the rebuilding of Casement Park and the upgrade of the A5, she says they will be built. 'I've said they'll be built on my watch. I will stand over that.' There is also the matter of the Irish presidential election. O'Neill bats away the names of any potential candidate – Mary Lou McDonald , Gerry Adams , her own – with the same response. Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald with Gerry Adams and party vice-president Michelle O'Neill during a pro-unity group event in Belfast. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA 'The party is still deliberating. We're actively having conversations. We've seen others enter into the field and we'll make our position known very shortly.' Will McDonald lead Sinn Féin into the next general election? 'Absolutely,' she says. Is O'Neill a future leader of her party? 'Well, there's no vacant position,' she says with a laugh. One day? 'I also love being vice-president … and working alongside Mary Lou. She's described me before as her wing woman. That's very much who I am.' The role of First Minister 'is my priority, and that's where I need to be focused … I'm more than content with where I am'.
