Amid ongoing murders in Dublin believed to be connected to gang warfare, the city's police force has issued a warning that journalists working for some of Ireland's top newspapers are also under threat of attack from organized crime gangs. Media group INM - which includes Ireland's biggest selling newspaper, the Sunday Independent - said its staff has been put on high alert, and decided to go public with the threats in order to expose how the criminal gangs operate, according to Agence-France Presse (AFP) .
"This is an outrageous threat to the freedom of the press in Ireland and we are taking the threats with the utmost seriousness," said INM Chief Editor Stephen Rae.
Ireland's prime minister Enda Kenny also condemned the threats and said the journalists have the government's "full support", according to the Belfast Telegraph.
Monday night saw the latest in a series of murders that have gripped the city and are believed to be connected to ongoing gang warfare. Eddie Hutch, 59, brother of former gang boss Gerry "The Monk" Hutch, was shot dead by four masked men Monday in his home in Dublin's northern inner city, according to Irish Central.
Detectives believe it was a revenge killing for the murder of leading Dublin criminal David Byrne, 33, Friday in an attack on the Regency Hotel in Dublin's north side.
Rae noted that the recent threats against journalists have come as the 20th anniversary approaches of the death of Veronica Guerin, an Irish crime reporter murdered by drug lords in 1996 whose story was told in a 2003 film starring Cate Blanchett.
"Our media group will not be deterred from serving the public interest and highlighting the threat to society at large posed by such criminals," added Rae.
