Naomi O'Leary Profile picture
Irish Times Europe Correspondent on leave. Host of the Irish Passport podcast. Previously with Reuters, Politico, AFP. Keep calm and report the facts.

Jul 3, 2021, 12 tweets

I wrote about how Irish MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly use their European Parliament speaking time, media platforms and legislative power to champion the views of authoritarian governments, particularly those of Putin and Assad
irishtimes.com/news/politics/…

Some sample amendments from Mick Wallace, seeking to delete a condemnation of Russia's occupation of Crimea, and delete a mention of a Dutch-led investigation that found Russian arms were used to shoot down the MH17 passenger flight.
You can see more here: parltrack.org/activities/197…

Both Clare Daly and Mick Wallace declined to respond to my texts, calls, and emails to them in the hopes of speaking to them for this article. Mr Wallace made it clear he wasn't in the mood to chat.

Both Daly and Wallace will speak to state-controlled media elsewhere however.
Here's Daly on Russia Today, and
Mick Wallace on the Chinese Communist Party outlet Global Times, where he was prominently featured as an overseas voice praising China on the CCP's anniversary.

Mick Wallace's parliament activities frequently make news in Chinese, Russian, and Arabic-language media interestingly.
This moment when he called the visiting Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya a Western puppet was quite a hit.

Here's Mick Wallace's confrontation of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya reported on Belarusian state television; separately, he also gave an interview to Belarusian TV explaining sanctions were illegal following the downing of the Ryanair flight, according to his podcast

'Guaidita' receives a cold shower from the Irish in Brussels', reports Russian conservative pro-Putin station Tsargrad.
'Tsikhanouskaya's request for sanctions didn't get the response she expected', reports Belarusian state-owned CTV
(Mick Wallace in Russian is 'Мик Уоллес')

Here's Clare Daly reported in the Chinese Communist Party outlet Huánqiú/Global Times and others to say 'we're in no position to lecture anyone about human rights', and describing the issue of Navalny as an excuse to attack Russia world.huanqiu.com/article/41uUL1…

Clare Daly's famous speech after the arrest of opposition poison-surviver Alexei Navalny calling him a racist and asking where was the outcry for sundry other arrested people was shared by RT in English and Arabic, interestingly, and in Syrian media too.
"كلير دالي": Clare Daly

Here is Syrian state news agency and Assad's party newspaper reporting Clare Daly to say the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has lost credibility, and can't be trusted for evidence that the regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on its civilians

Here is Iran's semi-official news agency reporting Mick Wallace's advocacy of the view that Iran saved Iraq from Isis, and Wallace quoted in a Syrian newspaper criticising sanctions on the Assad regime and saying Europe had tried to destroy Syria by supporting rebels (regime POV)

This stuff is endless; you can explore it yourself by looking up their names:

Mick Wallace:
Chinese: “米克·华莱士"
Russian: “Мик Уоллес”
Arabic: “ميك والاس”

Clare Daly: 
Chinese: “克莱尔·戴利”
Russian: ”Клер Дейли"
Arabic: "كلير دالي"

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