Sunday World Northern Ireland editor Jim McDowell has called on the UDA to lift threats against him and his family, against the newspaper and against newsagents stocking the paper.
The UDA in the past two weeks has called for a boycott of the Sunday World, claiming it was pursuing an anti-loyalist editorial policy and that some of its articles had endangered loyalists.
Mr McDowell said that in the past week police warned him that he and his family were under threat from one of the so-called UDA brigadiers. He was warned by the UDA that he must take his family out of Northern Ireland or face the consequences, he told The Irish Times last night.
Mr McDowell said that a number of newsagents were personally instructed by UDA members not to sell the paper. Some van drivers delivering the paper had to receive protection from the PSNI, he added.
At police headquarters in Belfast on Thursday, Mr McDowell confronted members of the Loyalist Commission, comprising UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando leaders, as well as Protestant churchmen and unionist politicians about the threat.
The Loyalist Commission had just held a meeting with the chief constable, Mr Hugh Orde. Mr McDowell demanded to hear what the commission had to say about the threats against his paper but members would not comment.
Mr McDowell described the UDA claims about the Sunday World as lies, and said he would not be forced out of Northern Ireland, and neither would the paper change its editorial policies. He said the paper had impartially highlighted the activities of loyalist and republican paramilitaries, as well as drug dealers, and had supported the peace process.
