AN ELECTION CANDIDATE in Cork has been told she is a “suicide waiting to happen” in a series of messages on Facebook.
The messages were sent to the Cork South-West candidate Fiona O’Leary after she posted a video critical of the far-right Pegida party, who held a demonstration in Dublin last weekend.
That demonstration turned violent after members of the party were chased through Dublin by members of an “anti-racist coalition”.
The messages encourage Fiona and her family to engage in mass suicide and particularly takes aim at her son, who has autism.
Today, she told TheJournal.ie that she has been on the receiving end of online abuse before, but the level of vitriol and mention of her children affected her.
I’m autistic myself and I’m an autism advocate who has been campaigning against MMS (a self-proclaimed cure for autism, cancer and Aids) for some time, so I‘ve received nasty messages online.
“But nothing like this. I did the video to speak out against Pegida because I couldn’t go to the rally.”
Fiona says that she is worried about the messages and has reported them to the gardaí.
I have never threatened or abused anyone in my life and as an autistic woman with autistic children, I am very concerned about these threatening messages.
“The fact that they are also targeting my children is disgusting.”
She says that the man, whose Facebook profile has likes for a number of right-wing groups including the English Defence League, French politician Marine Le Pen and “white genocide” pages, won’t stop her speaking out.
“It’s not going to stop me. It’s going to make me stronger.”
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