PEN International, Article 19, Reporters without Borders, the International Press Institute and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom have updated their report to the United Nations on free speech in Malta ahead of a UN review due in November. "Since 2013, the climate for freedom of expression has deteriorated significantly in Malta, in [...]
For the benefit of readers of this blog who do not live here or speak the language, I am translating here a report on the Labour Party’s “news” website published earlier today. A month-long campaign against Malta takes off “It conditions the way you work. The way you think about your own country.” October will [...]
Look at these posters hung on the streets of Perugia. Owen Bonnici is not sending Ministry officials to remove them at night. The same way protest banners are removed here within hours of being nicely tied with plastic cables ties to railings. The same way paid for posters, on billboards that have advertised beer and [...]
A Belgian Court has sentenced Stefan Grech for incitement to hatred and anti-Semitic assault. The defendant, who has been sentenced to pay 500 euros of non-pecuniary damage to the victim and one symbolic euro to anti-racism organisation Unia, will have to follow training in tolerance and the fight against anti-Semitism, among others. Stefan Grech had tried [...]
Twenty-two international NGOs and Malta’s human rights organisations Aditus, Integra Foundation and the Platform of Human Rights Organisations in Malta, backed the call for a public inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The call was made in a letter delivered today to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. The organisations represent between them thousands of [...]
That remark by Adrian Delia yesterday about the horror of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis teaching “our children” was not an accident. I am infuriated by people who try to guess which handler of Adrian Delia’s mishandled the situation. Being cut off from civilisation all your life, having an isolated existence where you think American 1980s action [...]
Simone Cini is, no doubt, a smart woman. Her time at Super 1, not always being as smart as her intellect should suggest, should not disqualify her from making headway in her career. She made it to Commissioner for Gender-Based and Domestic Violence, we now hear. The Sunday Times yesterday asked her what her credentials [...]
Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb 51 weeks ago. There are many hard hearts around us that rejoice at that fact. And many more barely polite enough to suppress their glee. And there are many who are indifferent as some are indifferent to people who drown at sea while still ramping up [...]
After Edward Scicluna’s embarrassing admission that he had not picked up Vera Jourova’s message that Malta was about to be whipped hard by the EU Commission over its bad handling of banking regulation, the technocrats we pay to get Edward Scicluna to understand what he does not pick up for himself go to the local [...]
Europe is a dangerous place for journalists. Fifty-one weeks after the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, 30-year old TV journalist Viktoria Marinova’s body was found dumped in a park near the Danube in Bulgaria. Viktoria Marinova’s last work had been to interview two other Bulgarian journalists, Attila Biro and Dimitar Soyanov, who were arrested in [...]
I hate sounding like some right-wing law and order bible basher. But I think 66-year old men who use their authority to violently sexually assault 22-year old women and seek to justify forcing oral sex on their victim as some form of professional requirement, should go to prison. In his mind, John Suda still believes [...]
The highest court of the land confirmed a lower court’s decision that a husband of a government minister has no place investigating her and her colleagues for a political murder. However zealous Silvio Valletta can be, he is too motivated not to get to the bottom of the crime for there to be any credible [...]
The Union of Teachers has forced the government to withdraw its reform package from Parliament. As Evarist Bartolo himself said, this is probably unprecedented. It’s not unheard of for a Minister to claw back on some rushed through legal notice. But ditching a legislative package that has made it halfway through the Parliamentary process is [...]
The prime minister does not work for a different government than Owen Bonnici. So he can’t be neutral in a court case between a private citizen - me - and his Minister for Culture. His comments to the press today saying it was for the courts to determine whether a protest in front of the [...]
The Constitutional Appeal Court has confirmed a lower court’s decision that the fact that Silvio Valletta led the investigation into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. It also confirmed the lower court’s order that Silvio Valletta must be excluded from the rest of the investigations. [...]
Valletta, the evening of 5th October 2018, before Owen's droogs walked by. From Eddie Aquilina's article in this morning's Times of Malta: "Surely Bonnici knows that the first minister to resign in Slovakia when Jan Kuciak was killed was the culture minister. There was no suggestion he had anything to do with the [...]
https://youtu.be/_f7hkD4P9kA It is right for Adrian Delia, as leader of the PN, to accept the General Workers’ Union invitation to speak at their anniversary conference. It’s perfectly civil to do so. He’s also right to acknowledge their valuable contribution to the country’s history and well being. There’s no doubt that apart from the great sweeps [...]
Read this extract from this morning’s digest (Brussels Playbook) in Politico. I’m reproducing here but here’s the link to the original. “DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT I: Malta’s Finance Minister Edward Scicluna was unpleasantly surprised when he opened Wednesday’s newspapers and read this FT story. In it, Justice Commissioner Vĕra Jourová announced she’s preparing to issue a binding order [...]
Chris Cardona never testified in open court to back his claim Daphne Caruana Galizia slandered him when she said he was in three-way sex with a paid prostitute while on duty on government business. But when you file a libel suit you take an oath that you know your claim to be true. Not that [...]
Joe Gerada, the second man in a three way sex orgy in a German brothel with Chris Cardona and a paid prostitute has withdrawn the two libel suits he filed against Daphne Caruana Galizia when she first alleged the occurrence. With this predictable action of Chris Cardona’s friend and paid advisor (paid by you, not [...]