Campbell complains about 'fascist' postings on Facebook

The DUP MP for East Derry, Gregory Campbell, has complained to the police after a picture of him with a bullet through his forehead against a Nazi flag background was posted on Facebook.

Mr Campbell said there must be greater scrutiny of Facebook and other social networking sites after his comments about the Saville Report on Bloody Sunday prompted offensive comments about him on the site.

Facebook has since removed the picture from its site.

Mr Campbell said there were 700 postings on Facebook sites attacking him.

“Those aligning themselves to this obviously don’t understand that whatever their view of Bloody Sunday and the Saville Report into it, we live in a democracy which allows people to offer a view that differs from theirs.

“The type of bigoted fascist nonsense expressed on these sites is similar to the beliefs that led to 3,500 deaths in Northern Ireland.”

Mr Campbell has drawn criticism after he said he was not in a position to accept the finding of the Saville report that the Bloody Sunday killings were wrong and unjustified, a finding that DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson has accepted.

In the Assembly yesterday, Mr Campbell added that the Bloody Sunday deaths on January 30th, 1972, were a tragedy, but that the cost of the inquiry standing at over £190 million was “deplorable and scandalous”.

He accused republicans of seeking to use Bloody Sunday as bogus legitimacy for their killings.

“The truth is that murder, mayhem and terror were rife before the 30th of January,” Mr Campbell said.