Statement from the National Union of Journalists re Raids on

Statement from the National Union of Journalists re Raids on "The Blanket"
July 16, 2003

NUJ 'extreme concern' at PSNI Raid on Member's House
By Michael Browne

The NUJ has voiced 'extreme concern' over the Friday evening (July 4) PSNI raid under the guise of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) on the west Belfast home NUJ member Anthony McIntyre.

Speaking yesterday Chair of the Northern Ireland Committee of the NUJ Kevin Cooper said: "The NUJ is extremely concerned at the use of the PTA against one of its members. It awaits to see the justification for this move.

"The NUJ is also concerned the police did not seek a court order to seize material in the normal fashion."

McIntyre is a high-profile media commentator on the northern Irish peace process. Speaking this morning Anthony, 46, slammed the police action as "political policing, censorship and suppression of the media". Anthony said: "They've left us unable to work, and this is just a trawl for my contacts and my work.

"They sent some 13 jeeps to our street. Neighbours say as many as 33 RUC jeeps swamped the estate, while another has told us he counted 13 jeeps in our street alone, so there must have been about 150 police involved. Myself, my partner and our two year old child were here."

Anthony continued: "They arrived just as we were heading to a wedding and this has left us without means to carry out our work." Although the police who came to the house were courteous they still removed all his means of production; " pc, discs, electronic organizers, mobile phones and a digital camera."

He said the officer leading the raid told him the raid related to an incident earlier this week when an Irish republican prisoner's support group staged a picket at the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Prison Service at Stormont, calling for segregation for republican prisoners, in the process obtaining access to an office and some service documents relating to pay negotiations, before being removed.

A security review at the prison service was launched in response to the breach. Although the prison service was confident no personal details of staff were compromised it coincided with a PSNI operation to disrupt an alleged Real IRA intelligence gathering cell in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

Anthony continued: "This is because as a journalist I introduced myself to the man at the Prison Service, a man called Malcolm Beattie, and showed him my press card. I told him I was there to cover the protest as a journalist, and this is because I had my digital camera with me. He asked me to leave and I did, and waited outside.

"They are going to say this is because I had a camera, and there are security implications, but it has to be condemned. I went up to cover a peaceful protest, not as part of some dissident republican military activity.

"On Friday the police came to my door and asked for me by name and when I came out they informed me they were there under the
PTA to search for a digital camera which I used to cover the protest on the Wednesday. But once in they took everything ; pc, mobiles, discs and have left me unable to work.

Anthony went on: "[The warrant said] "There is reasonable grounds to believe that certain articles, naming documentation relating to the Prison Service, namely camera, digital camera, photographs, records held on computer sought in connection or likely to be of substantial value to their terrorist investigations and it is necessary to seize them to prevent them from being concealed, lost, damaged altered or destroyed are on
the premises of Anthony McIntyre"."

The protest secured extensive media coverage, but it is not thought that any of the other media outlets like BBC NI or UTV have been raided.

Aside from being a commentator for the BBC, Sky and CNN on the northern Irish peace process and Sinn Fein thinking, he has written extensively for The Guardian, The Times, The Observer, Parliamentary Brief as well as The Sunday Tribune.

He also edits and writes an on-line radical journal called The Blanket, which he describes as a forum "for protest and dissent and free speech. I am a republican writer, but commentate for various outlets. The on-line journal is a legitimate outlet, used by many media outlets, and this is because of the police perceptions of my political writings. It is political policing.

"By raiding our house they are trying to link us with the dissident republican movement, which we don't have at all. I am totally opposed to that movement. For the minute the journal is down, they have effectively suppressed it, until we find a way of getting it back up again.

The move is also part of a sinister trend of policing under PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde, who since taking office last year has presided over a series of raids on journalists' homes and places of work.

In recent months the PSNI raided the home and office of the Sunday Times Irish Editor Liam Clarke and his wife Kathryn Johnson, and have also questioned The Observer's Irish editor Henry McDonald and The Times journalist David Lister, over an article in The Times revealing leaks of security service taps of phone calls between Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness and government advisor Jonathan Powell, as well as former northern secretary Mo Mowlam.

Anthony added: "It should be remembered Hugh Orde was part of the Steven's team investigating collusion, and as part of they also pursued former Tribune northern editor Ed Moloney, for his notes concerning his interview with William Stobie, dealing with the killing of solicitor Pat Finucane. This is policing the media, while they do nothing to catch the killers of Martin O'Hagan."

Investigative tabloid reporter O'Hagan, a father-of-three was gunned down in September 2001 by the LVF, although no one has been arrested in connection with his killing. Concerns have been voiced by colleagues that the investigation into his killing is being hampered by elements of the security forces looking to protect a spy or informant within the killer gang.

Moloney, then Belfast-editor of the Tribune was backed by his paper and the NUJ launched a successful legal challenge in the Court of Appeal to resist the order to handover his notebooks, despite risking a five year jail sentence.