Correspondent in Baghdad compared Shia militia to Orangemen for being insensitive to areas 'stained by sectarian bloodshed'

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The Telegraph Group – Ulster unionism's one time loyal champion on Fleet Street – has been reported to the Press Complaints Commission over an alleged insult to the loyalist Orange Order for comparing it with Islamic extremists.

The Ulster Unionist Party has complained to the newspaper watchdog over an article allegedly drawing parallels between an armed Iraqi Shia militia and the Orange Order. It was prompted by a dispatch from Baghdad by Colin Freeman, the Sunday Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent.

In his report from the Iraqi capital, Freeman writes: "Waving rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs, the convoy of Shia militiamen rolled down the Baghdad street, a 30-vehicle column of vans, pick-ups and battered saloon cars."

Freeman then continues: "Rather like Belfast's Orange parades, the militiamen have no compunction about driving through neighbourhoods already stained by past sectarian bloodshed."

In response, Stephen Nicholl, an Ulster Unionist councillor in Ballymena, County Antrim, has confirmed he made a complaint to the PCC about the article. "I believe Mr Freeman's inaccurate and wholly irresponsible comparison of the Orange institution with a gun-toting militia is a breach of the editorial code of practice and a retraction and apology must be forthcoming," he said.

"At a time when there are continuing efforts to reduce tensions in Northern Ireland, Mr Freeman's contribution is as unhelpful as it is unwanted and inaccurate."

While the Daily Telegraph was the most trenchantly pro-unionist of national newspapers during the Troubles, it became a source of frustration to David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader and future Nobel peace prizewinner, during the latter stages of the peace process.

The paper did not back his line that unionists should support the 1998 Good Friday agreement peace deal; instead, it called for the unionist population to vote no to the accord.

Although Trimble's official biographer, Dean Godson, who stood as a Conservative parliamentary candidate, was a former Daily Telegraph leader writer, his editorials expressed opposition to the Good Friday agreement and any reforms aimed at including Sinn Fein in the political process.