A man who allegedly issued a death threat against the Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council has been charged by police to court.
Councillor Lilian Seenoi-Barr became the first black Mayor in the North of Ireland in May.
The PSNI said officers investigating a report of online threats towards an individual in the Derry area in May 2024, have charged a 31-year-old man with improper use of public communications network.
He is due to appear before Derry Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, September 18, for a first remand hearing.
As is usual procedure all charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service.
The SDLP chose Mrs Barr as the next mayor of Derry City and Strabane at the end of April.
It prompted two sitting councillors to quit the party saying the SDLP leadership had changed the selection process.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood warned at the time about the use of language by politicians after Cllr Barr faced an “enormous deluge of abuse”.
Said the Foyle MP: “We’ve also seen this week the new first ever black Mayor of Derry facing an enormous deluge of abuse from around the world, right up to and including very serious death threats.
“And this kind of stuff is allowed to happen actually because politicians don’t mind their language and I think all of us have to be very careful about that, whether it’s on this island or whether it’s in the government in London.
“It’s important I think that all of us stand against that level of racism so that this is a different kind of place and we will not be led into the gutter by far-right activists, whether they’re coming from America, Dublin or Derry online.”
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