In an interview with TVM earlier tonight James Debono said we should be careful not to rely on what someone facing life in prison is telling us to try to save their neck. Anything Yorgen Fenech says about any possible masterminds higher up or even co-conspirators must be taken in the context of why it [...]
Matthew Caruana Galizia with protesters in Castille Square as the "urgent" Cabinet meeting now enters its fifth hour.
They've been at it 4.5 hours. It's reasonable to suspect they're not agreeing. Send a text message to Chris Fearne and remind him it falls on him to do the right thing. Tell him "Deputy Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat must go. He needs to know. You need to tell him. Get busy." His number is [...]
Statement by Repubblika, #occupyjustice and manueldelia.com This evening we have witnessed an attack on Maltese democracy and justice. The prime minister has exercised his disproportionate powers to protect his best friend if not himself as well from paying for crimes. Keith Schembri’s release is incomprehensible. Yorgen Fenech is being accused of killing Daphne Caruana Galizia. [...]
Keith Schembri released without charge. Cabinet called in spite of the prime minister's past statements that he was deciding pardons on his own, binding ministers to secrecy no matter their views on the situation. This is an orchestrated confidence trick that depends on our submission and acquiescence. We will not give it. Let's see what [...]
Right now is what our country has been reduced to. Waiting breathlessly for our governors to decide their own fate so that we may be grateful for it. Or so they would have us do. Cabinet is meeting with urgency. They have spent the last few days splitting us in stupid parties. When splitting us [...]
If the prime minister gave interviews I would start by asking him these questions: Does the prime minister still think there has been no corruption or wrongdoing involving Keith Schembri or Konrad Mizzi? Has the prime minister asked Keith Schembri who the owner of Macbridge is? Have the police asked the government for resources to [...]
Everyone must see this. And then join our protest this Sunday at 4pm in Valletta. https://www.facebook.com/LovinMalta/videos/555173245265818/
What a complete mess. At any other time I’d be writing about Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jason Micallef and the open disputes among Labour Party supporters. Or I could be writing about the state of the Nationalist Party. And so on. But all that feels irrelevant noise with all that’s going on. First item on [...]
Joseph Muscat is now spreading the warped narrative that he is squeaky clean. Keith Schembri is the bad guy and the bad guy is now out. Let’s not let the nasty nationalists take over. Rally behind the leader. Labour Party media is pumping Sunday’s mass meeting as if Joseph Muscat’s life depended on it. His [...]
Read this oped on Bloomberg by senior financial journalist Leonid Bershidsky. He describes what we are calling a mafia -- the association between crime, politics and business that has taken over Malta in the last six years -- in Russified times: he calls it an "oligarchy". And he says Malta shows that even stable democracies [...]
University students following the banner "Studenti Bla Biża" (Fearless Students) blocked traffic around the war memorial roundabout outside the walls of Valletta after all access to protesters to Castille Place and to Parliament Square was blocked up by police barricades. Traffic and public transport out of Valletta terminus were paralysed for several minutes as the [...]
The following is a speech I was hoping to deliver this evening at a conference organised by ELSA (the local chapter of the European Law Students Association) discussing the topic of "Freedom of Expression Online" at the president's palace. I had to cancel my participation in the conference when ELSA asked me to cut out [...]
The KSU, the national union of students, called a meeting of student bodies and organisations who today approved a resolution calling for Joseph Muscat to resign. As a former president of the student union when students today had not yet been born this is a particularly unjustified moment of pride for me. Happy to see [...]
I won't bother you with the details both because this is a court case that has been dragging for 15 months to a point where the start of it is hardly relevant anymore and because there are so many important things going on this shouldn't take any of your thinking time. In brief, in August [...]
Heads of governments of democracies – even of most dictatorships – do not usually survive a scandal where their assistant is discovered to be part of a murder conspiracy. When Macbeth wanted to kill his biggest political threat he didn’t send his soldiers for fear common friends might have a problem with it. He hired [...]
The square around Parliament has been blocked off for access. It has now become no man's land, a buffer of empty void between the people's voice and their parliamentarian's ears. They don't want to hear anymore. They just want to go on pretending it's not up to them to remove the prime minister, godfather of [...]
A group of activists are calling a gathering at Triton Fountain at 5.30pm tonight. Repubblika and #occupyjustice encourage you to attend. Photo: Jon Borg. The more protest there is the better. The louder the chorus the further it goes. People are hearing us. The mood in the Labour camp is changing. As someone [...]
