The Daily Mail coverage of this really pissed me off. Said it “was a witch hunt of our boys” and focused on how “half of the 302 deaths were terrorists”. Half of them may have been members of proscribed terrorist organisations however half of them weren’t, half of them were innocent civilians, whether they identified as it or not they were legally British citizens, British citizens who should have been protected by the state but instead lost their lives at the hands of the state. You imagine what the Daily Mail would be writing if 151 innocent English people were suspected to have been killed by a foreign governments army? These people have relatives who are still alive and still feel the pain of losing a loved one and if this leads to justice and closure for them then that is a good thing. Personally I believe that they should be pardoned in the same way that paramilitary members involved in civilian deaths were however prior to that they should still be prosecuted and criminalised. Some people will say that is a waste of money but I think don’t think it is, it will give some sense of justice to the relatives and record in history the crimes committed by the British state in Northern Ireland.