This is an insult to the memory of thousands of dead and injured
HOW very peculiar that Google refuses to acknowledge publicly that the IRA is a terrorist organisation. It can’t seem to make – or is not willing to make – a simple judgment. It can’t declare what the whole world knows.
Effectively, the company is saying that just because the IRA does not appear on the official US list, it is not a terrorist group.
Maybe Google needs some help. The company could try talking to the widow of Ian Gow MP, who was murdered in July 1990 outside his home in East Sussex.
When he started his car that morning, it triggered an IRA Semtex bomb that had been planted under the driver’s seat.
Perhaps Google should also try talking to the relatives of the five people killed when Brighton’s Grand Hotel was blown up during the 1984 Tory Party conference.
The bomb left my wife Margaret paralysed.
There are many, many more victims from other atrocities: men, women and children. I could go on and on. The truth is that in facilitating the sale of these T-shirts, Google is insulting the memory of thousands.
This is another example of how internet companies are profiting from encouraging and sympathising with terrorist groups. These companies don’t have any morality; they are only interested in making money.
It underlines the fact that we have to act to ensure they clean up their sites.
It seems impossible to conceive that someone could walk down the street in this country wearing one of these T-shirts – certainly not without risking a smack on the nose.
Perhaps it’s more likely in the US. Either way, it matters not, this trade must stop.
Prime Minister Theresa May has called on companies such as Google and Facebook to remove terrorist material within hours of it being posted online.
Her intervention was wellintentioned but she faces a struggle – not least because Google has proved so difficult to rein in.
All we can do is keep up the pressure on them to act.
These firms are immoral and must be cleaned up