Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and Progressive Unionist leader David Ervine were challenged today to explain why so-called IRA and loyalist UVF punishment attacks have continued eight years after they denounced them.
Human rights campaigner Prof Liam Kennedy challenged both leaders to a public debate on the issue after announcing he would run against Mr Adams in west Belfast.
Human rights campaigner Professor Liam Kennedy
The Queen's University Belfast academic's campaign will be supported by victims of republican and loyalist paramilitary violence, including Michael Gallagher and Victor Barker, who both lost sons in the 1998 Omagh bomb attack carried out by the "Real IRA".
Prof Kennedy, who contested the west Belfast seat in 1997, said: "The basic theme of my campaign is pressing for an end to republican and loyalist paramilitarism.
"One of the things I will be doing is going back to Gerry Adams and David Ervine, as the leaders of two paramilitary linked parties, to ask why despite giving assurances eight years ago that they were opposed to beatings and shootings they continued to take place.
"I was naive enough to believe it then. However the evidence shows beatings and shootings have actually increased since the 1997 elections and the Good Friday Agreement," he said.
"What I want to do is challenge Gerry Adams and David Ervine to debate with me their record on human rights."
PA