The East Belfast MLA said,
“The glorification of terrorism is a very real issue in Northern Ireland. Whilst the majority want to move Northern Ireland beyond the violence that blighted our society, some cling to it, with even those born long after the ceasefires and the Belfast Agreement revelling in it.
The law cannot make a distinction between ‘good’ terrorists and ‘bad’ terrorists however and therefore the glorification and celebration of dissident republican terrorists must be no different to that of the Provisional IRA.
When you celebrate those who murdered police officers in 1975 it offers only encouragement to others in 2025 to engage in the same tactics. You cannot draw a moral distinction between the two events because there is no such distinction, and the dissident terrorist gangs know the power of that fact. There was always an alternative to engaging in terrorism and there is always an alternative to the glorification of it.
The real test is not just in this prosecution in isolation, but what happens going forward. It will require further such prosecutions for a clear message to filter through that such actions do have real-world consequences.”