https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjjwvpw16y7o
The leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) has condemned online abuse directed at the party’s East Londonderry election candidate Cara Hunter.
Colum Eastwood said Ms Hunter, who represents the area in the Northern Ireland Assembly, has been targeted since the general election.
She finished third in the constituency, behind Sinn Féin’s Kathleen McGurk who came within 179 votes of unseating the veteran Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Gregory Campbell.
Mr Eastwood blamed some supporters of Sinn Féin for the abuse.
“The abuse that was levelled at Cara Hunter and others was over the fact that we ran a candidate in East Derry,” he told BBC Radio Foyle’s North West Today programme.
“To be clear there was no approach, no offer, no conversation from Sinn Féin to myself or anyone in the leadership of the SDLP about us not running in East Derry,” he said.
In a statement to BBC News NI, Sinn Féin’s candidate Kathleen McGurk said there was “no place for personal abuse against political representatives or anyone in our society".
Mr Eastwood said Ms Hunter was “fine” and “very resilient”.
However, he said there “is a nastiness sometimes in our politics, particularly here, particularly coming from one source”.
A man sits in front of a laptop computer, we see only his toros and not his face. a mobile phone sits beside the laptop
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
During the election campaign, police said safety information was available for candidates
Ms Hunter, a former deputy mayor of Derry, has previously spoken out about abuse she has received online.
In 2020, she said he had received sexually violent and threatening abuse online and by phone.
She said she had to have her contact details removed from Derry City and Strabane District Council's website due to the abuse and had taken advice from police.
Last month, the head of Northern Ireland's electoral commission warned it would be "damaging to democracy" if women don't feel safe to campaign or take part in elections.
Cahir Hughes said that "we'd be a poorer society if women did not feel safe" to run for office.
A report from the commission, external looking at the May 2023 local elections in Northern Ireland highlighted that half of the 807 candidates reported experiencing threats, abuse and/or intimidation.
It also found women candidates in Northern Ireland were more likely than male candidates to have experienced harassment.
by BelfastBodyBuilder
7 comments
TLDR: Shinners are pissed she ran and meant Gregory Campbell retained his seat against Sinn Fein. Outside of that though, no one really knew this was going to happen, otherwise the SDLP and Sinn Fein might have made a pact or unspoken agreement to have one candidate run.
SF supporters being abusive online because some young lady ran democratically in an election. Well I never. I really can’t believe that SF Republican types would be abusive to anyone. Lol.
Was it actual online abuse personally directed at Cara Hunter?
Or was it just self-righteous SF supporters bitching and moaning about the SDLP over what could have been?
Politicians have a serious habit of being sensationalist about things – so forgive me if I take Colum Eastwood with a pinch of salt
Surprised they haven’t directed their abuse at Aontu. If we’re going to talk about parties that took votes from SF then surely it was them more than Cara
Judging by the behaviour of all the SF/IRA “online activists” on this sub its not hard to believe they ve Been giving this young MLA a mountain of abuse.
How dare she run even though she finished 2nd behind Campbell last time around.
Cara wasn’t abused. The SDLP got a lot of flak. Haven’t seen a single person blame her.
All I want to say is those boys up in east Londonderry must be bating for the other team… I’m unionist and would have voted sdlp if I had this option!