One of Zuzana Caputova’s first acts as President-elect of Slovakia was to visit the street memorial for Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova and join the people’s demand for truth and justice for an assassinated journalist and his fiancee. She lit a candle there.
Zuzana Čaputová zapálila sviečku na pamiatku Jána Kuciaka a Martiny Kušnírovej.
Geplaatst door Denník N op Zaterdag 30 maart 2019
It makes sense of course. Slovakia elected a civil rights and environmentalist activist who represents popular anger at the assassination of a journalist and the delays in securing justice for Jan and Martina and for those whom Jan was investigating for corruption and organised crime.
They are way ahead of us in Slovakia. Their Prime Minister, Culture Minister and Home Minister resigned within days of the assassination. A shake-up in the Police followed and not only the executors but also the masterminds of the assassination have now been charged.
But the Slovaks are impatient to see justice served.
Their new President has very publically signalled she intends to represent that expectation.
Zuzana Caputova is due to be sworn in on 15 June.
We too have a new President. George Vella is due to be sworn in this week. He has been designated as President some weeks ago handpicked for the role by Joseph Muscat.
He has not yet visited the memorial to an assassinated journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Not yet, but there’s still time to act in contrast with his predecessor Marie Louise Coleiro Preca who last 8 September visited the site at the Great Siege Memorial on condition that any memento of Daphne Caruana Galizia was removed before she got there.
The President of Malta is expected to be a symbol of national unity. Let’s see if the new one also thinks that the demand for truth and justice after the assassination of a journalist is a controversial matter he should stay out of.
When you’re neutral between an assassinated journalist and her assassins, you’re siding with the assassins.