A clearly angry Martin McGuinness kicked off a press conference in Belfast just now by refering to the IMC as the non independent monitoring commission. He ruled it as having no place in the political process, that it clearly was set up to target Sinn Fein, that since its sources, he alleged, were in the Special Branch it was nothing more than a proxy for political policing and was operating an anti-Republican agenda. He then called for clear evidence to be produced, saying that in a democratic society, people should be accepted as innocent until proved guilty and asked “Where are these IRA men, what are their names?” He finished by noting that the apparent clash in the IIDC and the IMC over the accusation that some weapons still remained in the hands of the IRA, and said he refused to accept that the allegations had come from anywhere but Special Branch. Finally he called on the media not to be lazy, and take what he called the “winks, nods and innuendo” of this morning’s report.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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