6 days ago
Sinn Fein ‘will always stand on the side of journalism'
North Belfast MP John Finucane was speaking after his party's former president Gerry Adams won a defamation case against BBC Northern Ireland.
Mr Adams took the BBC to court over a 2016 episode of its Spotlight programme, and an accompanying online story, which he said defamed him by alleging he sanctioned the killing of former party official Denis Donaldson, for which he denies any involvement.
On Friday, a jury at the High Court in Dublin found in his favour and awarded him 100,000 euros (£84,000) after determining that was the meaning of words included in the programme and article.
The BBC will also have to pay Mr Adams's legal costs.
However, the broadcaster has been granted a stay on paying out the full costs and damages to allow it time to consider whether to lodge an appeal.
Speaking outside court on Friday, Adam Smyth, director of BBC NI, said implications of the libel victory against the broadcaster are 'profound', and could 'hinder freedom of expression'.
On Wednesday, Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O'Neill told reporters in Belfast that Mr Adams was 'right to defend his good name'.
But, she said, in a 'separate issue', journalists are 'entitled to do your job, to report fairly and honestly and actually scrutinise things, and to do so without any kind of intimidation or any fear'.
She also pointed out that Mr Finucane, in his role as a solicitor, had defended Belfast journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey.
He added: 'We've been witness to journalists being murdered for doing their job in Gaza, we have seen the arrest of Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey for doing their job (to) a very high standard.
'So I think we'll always stand on the side of journalism to be able to do their job robustly, without anybody receiving fear or intimidation as a result of that.'
Earlier this week, Amnesty International published a report revealing there has been more than 70 attacks and death threats against journalists in Northern Ireland over the last six years.
It also concluded that the region is the most dangerous place in the UK to be a reporter.
Also speaking to media in Belfast on Wednesday, Stormont Justice Minister and Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she condemns intimidation, threats, violence and abuse directed at anyone.
'The idea that this kind of abuse, this kind of vitriol, is normalised in our society, I think, is unacceptable, and we do need a reset,' she said.
'It is not acceptable to threaten a journalist because you don't like what they published. It is not acceptable to threaten their family because you want to intimidate them from doing their job.
'A free press is part of the accountability mechanisms in a democratic society, and a fair and free press is absolutely essential to holding those in power, whether political power or otherwise, to account, and when you try to curtail that, when you try to restrict that in terms of threats and intimidation and violence, then you are essentially attacking democracy, not just individual journalists.'
She said she believes fundamentally in the freedom of the press, adding that if there is more that the PSNI can do in that regard, she would want them to do it.
'I cannot direct the PSNI, as you're aware, as Justice Minister, but as leader of the Alliance Party, I am absolutely clear that there is no space in our society and no place for intimidation or threat against journalists,' she said.
'Some of the stories that people have expressed, some of the stories that people have told about repeated threats being brought to them by the PSNI, about their families being intimidated, their children, their partners, that is completely unacceptable, and it needs to be taken seriously, thoroughly investigated and hopefully followed up with robust prosecution.'
