A LEADING Irish-American businessman and former fellow at Queens University’s Centre for Conflict Transformation and Social Justice has voiced solidarity with embattled academic Colin Harvey.
Professor Frank Costello's support for the former human rights commissioner came as police confirmed they were investigating social media posts targeting Prof Harvey.
A fellow of the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace and a board member of civic nationalism group Ireland's Future, Prof Harvey has been the target of a sustained campaign of often sinister online abuse.
The latest spate of attacks on the human rights expert came after he last week posted details of a pending Queen's report on Irish unity.
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was among those who questioned the use of Queen's branding on the report, which is understood to have been authorised by the university.
On the advice of security experts, Prof Harvey is believed to have had a panic alarm fitted in his office, his name plate removed from his office door and information about his location removed from the university's website.
Prof Costello, a former chief of staff for Congressman Joe Kennedy, said it was important that academic freedom was not suppressed.
“The practitioners of the politics of darkness must not be allowed to stifle academic freedom," he told The Irish News.
Professor Costello said that as the parent of sons who had attended Queen's, as well as having worked at the university, he welcomed the management's support for Prof Harvey.
The one-time fellow at Queens University’s Centre for Conflict Transformation and Social Justice – now the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice – urged Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to instead focus on low levels of educational attainment among young people in the loyalist community.
"Rather than turning up at Queens seeking to rebuke Colin Harvey, I suggest Sir Jeffrey might focus his attention, and those of his colleagues in unionism of all stripes, into helping uplift those neglected young men and women to attain the education necessary for entry into Queen's and other third level institutions," he said.
