Here is Matthew Carbone, number two in the communications office of the government of Malta. He’s the coconut’s deputy so I suppose that makes him the walnut.
He’s not there to show his grief at the brutal assassination of a journalist. He’s not there to speak to protesters on behalf of government about its commitment to free speech.
He’s there to take close shots of individual protesters for subsequent identification.
Unless he’s a fetishist with a particular proclivity for angry women, and from what I hear he is not, he is taking close photos of protesters to profile those opposing his employer and line them up for the vindictive behavior of a regime intolerant of protest and keen on suppressing dissent.
He was standing around with members of the international press. As far as can be established he was not there to handle international journalists. Even if he was, a protest against his boss was the worst location for a government spokesman to do this. Only North Koreans are not embarrassed to do such a thing.
Anywhere else in the world this would be a clamorous PR disaster. A government spokesman taking spy shots of protesters would just be completely unheard of. But in this country this is fine. Because women who sleep in tents on cold nights to raise their voice for justice are, for Matthew Carbone’s clients watching the media he controls, the enemy within.
Matthew Carbone will not be embarrassed by this post. He wanted to be seen. He wanted to be noticed. Because terrorists want their actions known to the world. That is how terror works. Matthew Carbone is there to warn anyone thinking of joining the brave women who stood up to Joseph Muscat this evening that they too will face retribution if they do so.
For those who were there tonight, the organised trolling will start. The intimidation and the victimisation. Matthew Carbone will be pointing out to his Super 1 colleagues who to focus their cameras on: who is going to be discredited for the unforgivable crime of existing outside the Labour tribe and therefore declared ineligible to have an opinion because that opinion is necessarily motivated by the interests of the PN.
This is Labour’s view of freedom of speech. You are entitled to have an opinion on the single condition that it is what Joseph Muscat has decided it should be.
Consider the organised and targeted campaign of censorship by misreporting Facebook profiles and pages and causing them to be blocked that is currently underway. People from the Civil Society Network are being targeted for groundless blocks and brutal, intimidatory insults from fake profiles.
What democracy is it, where only anonymous Labour trolls are allowed to speak up without fear of retribution?