Look at this unbelievable statement by the Speaker of Malta’s Parliament Anġlu Farrugia.
I wasn’t among the protesters in front of Parliament yesterday evening. But I watched it on Facebook and some of those who were there are my friends. Many others I do not know.
Anġlu Farrugia thinks it’s criminal to protest in front of Parliament. Like the guy in the Beijing politburo circa 1989, Anġlu Farrugia thinks that blocking the way for Owen Bonnici’s car, when he had another exit, he could have used is a criminal act worthy of a criminal investigation.
A younger Anġlu Farrugia locked up a timid, protesting waif of a 19-year-old Daphne Caruana Galizia into a shit-strewn cell forcing a false confession out of her in a middle of the night interrogation. He had no idea what dragon he was waking when he did that.
As Speaker of Parliament Anġlu Farrugia should be defending the privileges of Parliament from the ravages of the government’s unstoppable assault. If he’s calling for any criminal investigation, he should be start with calling for an investigation into Konrad Mizzi’s rotten corruption that looks to all today, as it looked to many yesterday, as having been covered up by bloody murder.
Anġlu Farrugia wants us to be speaking about a little spittle on Owen Bonnici’s car window instead of speaking on the blood on Joseph Muscat’s hands.
Servile, tribal, partisan ignoramus.
My friends can vouch for this. I am pathologically fussed about Parliamentary privileges because I do believe in Parliament as an institution, and the sacred power and the responsibility of MPs to keep government in check. My appeal yesterday was clear: it was addressed to Labour Party MPs above all others, to Anġlu Farrugia too if the matter comes to a casting vote. You’re not slaves of government. You’re its masters. Fire this government and form a new one. The Labour Party is perfectly capable of producing another prime minister. We don’t need to have one mired in the corruption that the present one is.
Owen Bonnici is, technically, an MP. But he’s also a government minister. He is minister for justice. Protesting against his handling of justice is legitimate, understandable, necessary and democratic. Not a hair of his body was touched. Not a thread on his jacket was pulled. He was ensconced in his car and inconvenienced for less time than most people spend in traffic on any given school run.
And now he’s getting Anġlu Farrugia to throw the book at us, is he? That’s how they want us. Quiet, timid, lighting candles and planting flowers which they can ignore or tear off. They don’t want to see the people’s anger. And if they see it, they want to clamp down on it.
I am informed the Speaker’s statement of today is not empty bluff. A criminal inquiry is ongoing. They are seriously thinking of punishing people for protesting.
I know what that did to Daphne Caruana Galizia when she was 19. I know what it will do to people when they do it again.
After all, we’re in a shit-strewn cell already. Parliamentarians have privileges sure. But if they stand idly by as this country is taken over by greed and murder, they renounce those privileges. They invite protest instead.
And they’ll get it. Oh yes.