I was treated like a paedophile or rapist
SACKED journalist Kevin Myers has blamed political correctness for his downfall and said the treatment he received would be fitting for ‘a paedophile, a rapist or an unrepentant terrorist’.
He also criticised Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for welcoming his dismissal after an article he wrote in The Sunday Times, was labelled anti-Semitic by some. While admitting the piece was ‘poor’, he denied the anti-Semitism charge and said the Jewish Representative Council had supported him, the Leinster Express reported.
Myers was speaking at the James Fintan Lalor Autumn School in the Midlands Park Hotel in Portlaoise yesterday. He bemoaned the lack of due process involved in his ban by The Sunday Times and condemned the ‘politically correct mobs’ that labelled him a bigot and an anti-Semite.
He accused some journalists of killing freedom of speech by destroying freedom of expression, the freedom to offend and to be wrong. Addressing the Taoiseach’s role in his demise, he said: ‘Perhaps the worst damage came from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste [Frances Fitzgerald]. When I thought I was steadying the ship, the Taoiseach not merely applauded my dismissal but, by extension, he applauded my being banned for the rest of my life by The Sunday Times.’
He said the article he had written was ‘systematically misrepresented’ and he was labelled on the ‘Twitosphere’ as an anti-Semite.
He said: ‘At 4am the editor of The Sunday Times was woken up and took down my column online, and that pretty much was that.
‘Anybody who knows me, such as the Jews of Ireland, knows that I am not anti-Semitic and I am and remain a firm friend of Israel.
‘This is the kind of punishment you reserve for a paedophile, for a rapist, for an unrepentant terrorist.
‘It is not the voice of the Catholic Church any more,’ he continued. ‘It is the voice of political correctness,’ he added.