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Devlin lodges complaint with police ombudsman over threats to infant son


Amnesty International and the NUJ are supporting Northern Ireland journalist Patricia Devlin in her complaint to the NI police ombudsman, and have called for threats against the media to be taken seriously. Patricia has received death threats and other


threats of violence. Last month, she lodged an official complaint with the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland over what she said was police failure to investigate a threat to rape her baby. In October 2019, Patricia, crime reporter for the Sunday World, received the threat by direct message to her personal Facebook account. It was signed with the name of a neo-Nazi terror group, Combat 18, which in the past has had links to loyalist paramilitaries in the North. Last month, in an October 21st piece in the Sunday


World, Patricia wrote: “It’s been 12 months since I walked into a PSNI station to report my belief [a] convicted criminal was behind an abhorrent message sent to my personal Facebook page targeting my three-month-old boy. “In that time, police told me they had evidence to connect this neo-Nazi supporter – complete with sinister loyalist paramilitary links – to that threat. “Yet one year on, this suspect has not even been


questioned, let alone arrested,” Patricia wrote. Frustrated by their lack of action, Patricia made the complaint to the ombudsman, supported by solicitors KRW Law, Amnesty International and the NUJ. Patricia said: "Because of my job as a journalist,


exposing criminals and paramilitaries, I have been on the receiving end of threats of violence and death threats for years. In Northern Ireland, that now seems to go with the territory, where press freedom comes at the price of constant and repeated threats to journalists.


"But when I received a threat to rape my newborn


baby, also identifying my grandmother and the location of where the sender believed she lived, I had enough. I reported the threat to the PSNI and was even able to name the individual I suspect was behind the threat,” she said. Patricia said police had the individual’s name all this


time, yet a year later no one has been brought in for questioning. Patricia said she made her complaint, “not just for


me, but for all the reporters who have been receiving these threats, without anyone being held to account. This has to stop." In her piece for the Sunday World, Patricia wrote:


“That’s the thing about social media – a phone or a computer screen does not stop the monsters from getting inside your life. “It brings them right into your living room, your


kitchen, your bedroom. Worst of all, they get inside your head.”


Patricia Devlin: Two out of three women reporters worldwide threatened or harassed online.


She asked: “Why is it that when crimes are committed online, they are treated less seriously than those carried out on the street?” In that piece Patricia said misogyny is a huge driver.


“Any woman with a public profile is seen as fair game in their twisted world where threats of sexual violence are increasingly used.” She said a recent study by the International Women’s Media Foundation found that two out of three women reporters worldwide said they had been threatened or harassed online at least once.


Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said:


“Facilitating impunity for those who choose to threaten, harass and attempt to silence journalists has a collective impact on the journalistic community, one which compounds the awful personal impact on Patricia and her family. The PSNI needs to get a grip and resolve this matter robustly.” Michelle said the NUJ has raised Patricia’s case and


those of other members as part of its work on the UK government’s new national committee for the safety of journalists, to underline why urgent action is required. Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty UK’s Northern Ireland


programme director, said the threats sent to Patricia were part of a wider climate undermining press freedom in Northern Ireland. “Amnesty International has been watching with


increasing concern the constant stream of threats being received by journalists in Northern Ireland, designed to shut down press scrutiny of criminal and paramilitary activity,” he said.


Patricia will speak later this month in an online workshop on online harassment. See page 16 for more.


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