{"id":463294,"date":"2026-05-01T13:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/463294\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:50:10","slug":"tories-use-of-bloody-sunday-footage-disgusting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/463294\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories’ use of Bloody Sunday footage ‘disgusting’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The use of archive footage of paratroopers from Bloody Sunday in a Conservative Party video message on British army veterans has been branded “disgusting”.<\/p>\n

Foyle MP Colum Eastwood said it was an insult to the dead and injured and their families.<\/p>\n

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch posted the video on social media several days ago.<\/p>\n

Mr Eastwood criticised her this morning including a link to the post.<\/p>\n

“I’m astounded that Kemi Badenoch used footage of soldiers in Derry during Bloody Sunday in this video promoting the actions of the British Army.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s disgusting, deeply offensive and an insult to the innocent civil rights protestors who soldiers killed that day,” he said.<\/p>\n

The post was deleted a short time later.<\/p>\n

A Conservative spokesman said: “As soon as we were made aware of the footage, the video was taken down.<\/p>\n

“We apologise for the inclusion of this material, which should not have been used and will not be used again.”<\/p>\n

The Conservative Party video criticised the Labour Government’s planned new legacy bill.<\/p>\n

The conservatives say it will not sufficiently protect army veterans who served in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

In the video Ms Badenoch asks viewers to “think about the men and women who served this country during the Troubles, who risked their lives to defend others, to keep the peace”.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nConservative leader Kemi Badenoch posted the video on social media several days ago (file pic)<\/p>\n

The video included footage of the Parachute Regiment in Derry on Bloody Sunday.<\/p>\n

It shows paratroopers running through a street barricade in William Street prior to the shooting which followed.<\/p>\n

Thirteen civilians were shot dead in Derry that day in January 1972. A fourteenth died later.<\/p>\n

A lengthy public inquiry finally reported in 2010.<\/p>\n

It found the soldiers had shot unarmed civilians without justification and lied to cover it up.<\/p>\n

The UK government subsequently issued a public apology for the actions of its soldiers.<\/p>\n

Last year one of the paratroopers, Soldier F, was found not guilty of two counts of murder and five of attempted murder linked to Bloody Sunday.<\/a><\/p>\n

The judge said the evidence, which relied heavily on military statements taken at the time, was not sufficient to support a conviction.<\/p>\n

But he said it was clear that the soldiers had lost all sense of military discipline when they opened fire on civil rights protesters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The use of archive footage of paratroopers from Bloody Sunday in a Conservative Party video message on British…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-463294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116499646680973361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}