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A SINN FÉIN member of the Northern Assembly is coming under fire for describing Northern Ireland as a ‘putrid little statelet’.
Maskey, a representative for west Belfast, made the initial comment via Twitter in response to an unrelated tweet from SDLP leader Colum Eastwood.
“Unfortunately it took more than the CRA (Civil Rights Association) to secure rights in the putrid little statelet NI,” he said.
The tweet has been excoriated by unionists who suggest it can only be interpreted as legitimising the IRA’s campaign of violence during The Troubles with regard to civil rights abuses in the North.
Last night, DUP MP at Westminster Emma Little Pengelly said that Maskey’s words exemplify “a continued attitude of disrespect within Sinn Fein”, and said unionists are “entitled to know whether such comments are representative of Mary Lou McDonald’s view when she talks about ‘unionist brothers and sisters’”.
Maskey’s tweet is a further headache for the Irish and British governments as they attempt to coax both sides of the Assembly into reforming a functioning executive in Northern Ireland.
The Assembly has been dissolved, leaving the North with no functioning government, since January of 2017.
Defending his tweet, Maskey said that “the northern state was a unionist-dominated apartheid state, founded on religious and civil discrimination and which denied citizens fundamental rights such as the right to vote” and condemned the “faux outrage” expressed by unionists at his comments.
“Peaceful civil rights demonstrators were beaten off the streets in an effort to crush the demands for civil and human rights, special powers were used to suppress protest, and the state forces played an active role in sectarian pogroms of the 1920s, 1930s and 1960s,” he said.
The Unionist party presided over all of that.
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That pic looks like something from the Third Reich.
Mein Tweet
I’d be more impressed if they could predict the lotto numbers
just sounds like a way of encouraging herd behaviour. If its important enough it will trend anyway. Sounds like a bunch of obsessive teenagers looking over their shoulders to be told what to think
for what? some people have too much time on their hands. as for apps, hate most of them. want my location? why? no you can’t. terms and conditions we don’t like.
keep your privacy to yourselves, don’t go giving it away.
time will tell, these gimmicks are for marketing and government bodies. avoid.
for me i dont like twitter just facebook and google plus …
http://goo.gl/Upmi1F
have your say