25th Anniversary Of Bloody Sunday And The Need To Re-Examine The Events Of That Day

EDM number 461 in 1996-97, proposed by John Hume on 29/01/1997.

That this House unequivocally and totally condemns all violence; recalls the then Prime Minister's, the Right honourable Member for Bexley, strictures to Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, on 1st February 1972 that 'it had to be remembered that we were in Northern Ireland fighting not only a military war but a propaganda war' and that the Lord Chief Justice said that 'the Tribunal would be asked to enquire into what happened, and not motives' and 'it would help if the inquiry could be restricted to what actually happened in those four minutes when men were shot and killed; this would enable the Tribunal to confine evidence to eye witnesses'; and calls upon the Government to reopen the inquiry to examine the Army's radio traffic recorded by Mr James de Wint-Porter at the time of the shootings, the medical evidence which suggests that some of the victims were shot from the walls of Derry rather than ground level and whilst recalling the Prime Minister's statement that the Bloody Sunday Dead were innocent, now calls upon the Prime Minister to repudiate all of the findings of the Widgery Tribunal and to recognise that having a full examination of all the relevant evidence including the Army's radio traffic, the fresh medical evidence and unexamined written statements of witnesses is the best way to exorcise the bitter memories of 25 years.

This motion has been signed by a total of 88 MPs.