Our response to The National bullying and intimidating our writers

Two anti-Majority articles in The National today ( Expert’ Unionist vanishes after evidence query and Hundreds of active members of pro-Union group found to be fake ) serve no purpose other than to try to bully and intimidate us and our writers. They are not based on any news, but serve simply to say, ‘If you write articles against Scottish Nationalism, you will be targeted’.

Contrary to their claims, I have not received a single email or telephone call from the National asking for comment. This is not only UNPROFESSIONAL, it means the journalist LIED multiple times in each article. I will be reporting this unprofessional conduct to IPSO.

The objective of their article is not just to intimidate our writer, Angus Robinson, by trying to find out where he works and threaten his livelihood, but to intimidate any writer who is thinking of writing for us. By targeting Angus, and trying to dig up what they can on him to try and discredit him, they prove why Angus and other writers want to stay anonymous.

It’s no surprise that many commentators on Scottish Nationalism require anonymity. We all know that anyone who uses their real name to question Nationalism is subject to online and offline abuse and threats of violence, and, as the National proved today, their employers will be harassed under the guise of ‘journalism’.

The National and The Scottish National Party have created a society of intimidation and fear in Scotland. Speak out and you will be targeted. Angus made a good decision to protect himself. But in a decent society, he shouldn’t have to.

The other article about fake profiles isn’t even worth discussing, other than to show that even the slightest issue – such as spam profiles on our site (damn you WordPress spam filter!) – will be pounced upon and used to try to slur us.

We all know why these articles are appearing now. Because we are BEING EFFECTIVE in speaking out against this disgusting rag’s content. But is this really how Henry Faure Walker, Newsquest’s CEO, chooses to retaliate when we point out the disgusting ANTI-ENGLISH hate (really racism), bigotry and intimidation, he and NewsQuest publish? Bullying our writers? Trawling for dirty scraps to discredit opponents? Elevating them to front page news? Elevating the most dubious claims? It’s not only scummy, it’s embarrassing and unprofessional.

Perhaps The National’s ‘editorial’ team knew that today we are launching a petition to ask Faure Walker and Mike Reed, CEO of Gannett, the US-based company that owns Newsquest, to cease publishing their anti-English hate rag, and decided to attack us first.

It beggars belief that Gannett, an international media company that I have great respect for, and Newsquest, a UK publisher with readers, employees and vendors across the UK, would allow anti-English hate and intimidation of its opponents in its newspapers.

http://www.change.org/stop-the-nationals-anti-english-hate

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Finally, like all bullies the National’s attacks simply shows the FEAR and INSECURITY they have of the real majority of Scots who are opposed to the ugly and divisive us-and-them politics of Nationalism. But bullies never win. In fact, by revealing themselves to be bullies, they’ve already lost.

We expect more attacks and intimidation, but we are both The Majority and the majority. We are your voice, we will continue to stand up against racism, bigotry and hate, and we will prevail.

Thank you for your support.

Mark Devlin, Publisher