Ireland’s Justice Minister Michael McDowell has compared the planned
cross-border paper Daily Ireland to the Nazi party daily paper
Volkischer Beobachter .
The Belfast-based cross-border daily is due to be launched on 1 February and is published by the Andersonstown News Group.
In a statement, McDowell claimed the new title would “re-write history” to favour the Provisional IRA.
He
asked: “Will it be to Irish democracy what the Volkischer Beobachter
was to pre-WWII German democracy? “We should not passively stand by as
a naked plan to subvert democracy by those who are allied to such a
movement is put into effect.
“We are being invited into the
Orwellian nightmare of the Provo parallel universe where truth becomes
falsehood, where words mean only what the speaker wishes them to mean
and where common humanity is expendable in pursuit of insatiable
ideology.”
Daily Ireland managing director Mairtin O Muilleoir
said he has written to McDowell seeking a meeting to discuss his
“scurrilous and dangerous comments”.
He said: “The Andersonstown
News Group, which is behind the Daily Ireland project, is well-known
for its nationalist views and as a business success story.
” Daily Ireland will be assertively pro-united Ireland, anti-violence domestically and internationally, and pro-peace process.
“That
combination has led to attacks from extremists North and South. It has
also led to a series of death threats against our newspaper group from
loyalist paramilitaries.
“This statement today increases the risk
to our staff as they go about their work, but the Minister must know
that we will publish this newspaper.”
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