A grieving mother and her lawyer have found themselves the target of an extreme abuse campaign after they sued a newspaper over conspiracy theories that falsely claimed her son had died from a covid vaccine.
The Irish Light newspaper (Irish Light) repeatedly abused Edel Campbell over the Internet, and his followers threatened her lawyer with "execution".
Conspiracy theorists around the world have used dozens of tragic deaths to spread misinformation about vaccines.
This case is considered the first in which a relative filed a lawsuit in court.
The Irish Light named Campbell's son, Diego Gilsenan, and 41 others in an article last year that suggested an "untested and dangerous" covid vaccine was to blame for their deaths.
Furthermore, the BBC was told that Diego took his own life in August 2021, aged 18, and had not even been vaccinated.
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The campaign of abuse following the filing of the lawsuit was "shocking to say the least" and could explain why other family members did not take legal action, Edel Campbell's lawyer, Ciaran Mulholland, told BBC Radio 4.
"You can understand why a lot of people are extremely hesitant to go to a lawyer after seeing what happened to Edel Campbell," he says.
Campbell told the BBC that Irish Light had "made her life hell" and added that she was now afraid to come out publicly.
The BBC has agreed not to use the photograph of Edel Campbell and her son for this article in order to protect it.
In frequent social media posts over several weeks, Irish Light and its editor Gemma O'Doherty accused Campbell of "scandalous lies", of being "mentally unstable" and of participating in a "massive fraud".
There are also extreme references to suicide about Edel Campbell.
According to Mulholland, supporters of Irish Light have called for him to be executed or shot, and have made anonymous calls to his office and threatened other staff members.
Campbell and her lawyer decided to file a civil suit against O'Doherty for harassment and defamation after the paper published a front page photo of her son Diego Gilsenan and others under the headline "Died Suddenly".
This towline widely used in social networks among conspiracy theorists to suggest that the unexpected deaths of young people are linked to the covid-19 vaccine.
In an article mentioning Edel Campbell's son, Irish Light argues that the establishment doesn't question the "mysterious deaths" because it "knows exactly what it is: an untested and dangerous injection forced into the Irish people".
Deaths from the covid vaccine are extremely rare.
British statistics record 55 deaths in cases where the received vaccine is considered the underlying cause, among more than 50 million people who received at least one dose.
Among some of the other young people who appeared in the Irish Light text, one died in a swimming pool accident, another died of a head injury and a third died of meningitis, according to their families.
Campbell says that Irish Light did not contact her for comment about Diego before the article was published.
The BBC also revealed that Irish Light had not contacted several other family members of the young people mentioned in the article.
Mulholland said the lawsuit is not about "retaliation" or compensation.
"All Edel Campbell wants is to protect Diego's integrity, and the integrity of her family as a whole," she says.
Edel Campbell's lawsuit was funded through gifts and the pro bono work of her attorney.
He told the BBC that the legal action was launched after various attempts to ask Gemma O'Doherty to remove the images of Diego Gilsenan were unsuccessful and resulted in an escalation of online abuse.
In July, the High Court in Dublin granted a restraining order preventing the Irish Light editor from contacting Campbell and from using or publishing her son's image for any purpose without his mother's consent.
Abusive posts about Campbell continued on social media, including from the Irish Light account on Ix, formerly known as Twitter, which Gemma O'Doherty admitted she runs personally.
Campbell reported the harassment to police, but Mulholland says she has yet to contact or hear from Gemma O'Doherty about it.
Garda Síochána, the national police service of the Republic of Ireland, told the BBC it would not comment on "named individuals" or "details of ongoing investigations".
It says it continues to "actively investigate the alleged harassment of an individual from the North West area" of Ireland.
O'Doherty and Irish Light did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
However, on social media, Irish Light claims that the BBC will "smear" Gemma O'Doherty just because she "exposed the vaccine genocide".
In online posts, O'Doherty denies harassing Edel Campbell and continues to suggest that her son's death is sinister or mysterious in some way.
She instructed a lawyer to defend her in the lawsuit filed against her.
The Irish Lite is a sister paper to its UK namesake Lite, although they are editorially independent of each other.
The BBC previously disclosed that a British newspaper called for the execution of politicians and doctors.
He is associated with a British ultra-right and a German publication linked to the failed coup attempt in that country.
In addition to more innocuous features, Irish Light publishes articles promoting conspiracy theories such as "Pfizer knew vaccines would kill," "Water fluoridation lowers Irish IQ," "Why man-made climate change is a hoax," and "The Irish will become a minority in Ireland".
Although Campbell is considered the first to sue over false claims of vaccine deaths, the case has similarities to some other victims of conspiracy theorists.
Survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing filed a lawsuit over claims the attack was faked, and parents of the Sandy Hook mass shooting won a groundbreaking lawsuit against Infovorce host Alex Jones.
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