Close Down Voices and Sources of Terror

MEP Jim Nicholson has voiced his concerns about websites and bank accounts being used to promote and raise funds for the Real IRA.

"It was reported last week that the Real IRA has a recruitment/propaganda website hosted by a server based in the United States. The US State Department lists the Real IRA (along with Continuity IRA) as 'Foreign Terrorist Organizations.' That being the case it is absurd---and a violation of its own definitions and regulations---for the State Department to allow a website hosted from within the United States to be used as a mouthpiece for an organization that engages in terrrorist activity in Northern Ireland.

"I will be writing to the US Consul in Belfast, seeking assuarances and guarantees that websites promoting terrorism in Northern Ireland---or any other part of the United Kingdom for that matter---will be closed as soon as they are detected and reported.

"And I am also very concerned that a front organisation for the Real IRA has a bank account with the Ulster Bank and lists details for terrorist supporters to donate funds. The organisation---the Irish Republican Prisoners' Welfare Association---is also banned in the US. Members are not allowed to enter the US and US citizens are banned from giving either the Real IRA or the IRPWA any "material support."

"Again, I will be writing to the US Consul in Belfast, to the Secretary of State and to the Royal Bank of Scotland (the Ulster Bank's parent company) asking them to close down this account with immediate effect. It seems to have sneaked through on a legal technicality: while the Real IRA is a banned organisation in NI, the IRPWA is not.

"It is up to both the UK and US governments to co-operate on this matter and swap the necessary information. Terrorist organisations thrive on loopholes and government foot-dragging. It is vital that every step is taken to ensure that armed and active terrorist groups, along with their "front" organisations, are immediately stopped from propaganda, recruiting and fundraising activities.