Karen Zerafa Boffa first published this on her personal Facebook page. Reproduced here without her permission. I don’t think she’ll mind.

Friends often ask me, “Why do you bother to attend Daphne’s vigils every month? Can’t you see it’s useless? Why don’t you just keep your head under the parapet like most people are doing, until the toxic environment we are living in just blows away ?”

My answer to that is :

  • Because the toxic environment will not blow away on its own; it is directly proportional to the passivity it is met with.
  • Because a journalist and a person who exposed the filth running this country in collusion with international organised crime and the countries it operates in has been assassinated for each and every one of us, for our children and their future. The very least I can do is attend a vigil calling for justice to be done to her.
  • Because I have a fully functioning conscience.
  • Because I have a free, logical brain which does not allow me to wear any blinkers, and will not let me rest with outrage and worry at what is happening to our country.
  • Because I believe in justice and truth, basic decency and solidarity.
  • Because I do not live in a vacuum, caring only for what affects me directly, but in a society which functions like a living organism. If the arm is turning black with gangrene, I am not stupid enough to think I can survive unless I go through the pain of amputation.
  • Because my stomach turns and my outrage explodes every time I read and see the insidious lies and blatant cruelty vomited every day on social media.
  • Because the cruelty and injustice directed towards Daphne’s grieving family are absolutely horrendous. Because Daphne’s children, her husband, her mother and father, her sisters, and her nieces could have been my own children, husband, parents, sisters and nieces. Because they need the comfort of knowing that people care for them and that not everyone by far is like the execrable trolls who bombard them with hate every day.
  • Because Daphne’s assassination and dehumanization have been long coming, from the very beginning that the Labour propaganda machine turned its guns on this lone, brave woman.
  • Because I do not want to be afraid. I do not want to bow down under the mountain of psychological intimidation that is being thrown at all those who are fighting for justice.
  • Because I am not a hypocrite.
  • Because I do not want to live in a country where the environment is being destroyed, all independent institutions swallowed up by the government, and where the last bastion of democracy, our judicial system, is teetering on the brink of annihilation.
  • Because I want to do my little bit in supporting those who are risking their lives, and those of their families to fight for justice. People like Daphne whose life was so cruelly taken, to Simon Busuttil, David Casa, David Thake, Jonathan Ferris, Kristina Chetcuti, Maria Efimova, Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, il-Kenniesa, Occupy Justice, Civil Society, Caroline Muscat, the Shift News, all the brave PN politicians who are sticking their neck out for justice and most of all for Daphne’s family. Because all these are being targeted by Labour and New Way trolls.
  • Because of that sham magisterial investigation and Adrian Delia’s obvious collusion with Muscat in their intent to destroy Simon Busuttil and all the other thorns in their sides mentioned in the previous paragraph.
  • Because Daphne’s vigils have become a rallying point for all those who care about justice , who find it impossible to live on the bright surface of society and ignore the rot underneath.
  • Because I live by my Christian / human ideals of love, justice and solidarity.
  • Because I will not be swayed or misled by Labour /New Way propaganda machine that protesting against gross injustice is ‘negative.’
  • Because I am not a fool. Because I am not brainwashed and can smell FAKE a mile away.
  • Because I want to live in a normal country again with a fully functioning democracy and rule of law.
  • Because I love our children and want them to live in a safe country, not the crime capital of Europe.
  • Because my conscience and integrity unlike that of so many of my past ‘friends’ have been, are not for sale.
  • Because I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror if I didn’t.
  • Because I am old enough to remember the movement SOLIDARNOSC and know the power of the people when they unite together under a common goal.
  • Because I will never give up hope that people are basically decent, and when things start becoming more insupportable, they will finally wake up from their stupor and show us what makes them human.
  • Because Daphne with her bravery, her cutting-edge intuition and investigative journalism, is being proved right again and again.
  • Because I do not want my country to become a one-party state with a bunch of crooks leading the government and the opposition in cahoots with each other.
  • Because I simply cannot miss these vigils. They have become our rallying point of SOLIDARITY AND FIGHT FOR JUSTICE.