PEN International is hosting a vigil for Daphne Caruana Galizia on Tuesday 16 October at 7 pm in the courtyard of St James' Church in Picadilly, London. St James' Church is right opposite Malta's High Commission to the UK. The event is described by the organisers as "a vigil to pay tribute to the courage of [...]
The focus right now is on Chris Cardona and the reasons he lied about not knowing Alfred Degiorgio, alleged assassin number 1 awaiting trial for killing Daphne Caruana Galizia. When faced by witnesses he met him close to the bombing at Ferdinand’s bar in Siġġiewi he denied having met him and insisted he only knew [...]
Pierre Portelli was not having a great day today. It’s not something I brought about. Nickie Vella De Fremeaux hit out at Pierre Portelli without naming him at first over an issue which emerges from a conflict of interest he is in, combining his work at the PN with his private interests. In a message [...]
By Charmaine Spiteri: Iced Buns It has been reported in the media that former Parliamentary Secretary Deborah Schembri, who failed to get elected in the last election earns about €160,000 a year through public contracts awarded to her by direct orders. In the contract with Identity Malta, she is required to go through 50 files [...]
What should be obvious is the callous horror that Malta’s Parliament has made no announcement it will be marking the death of a journalist in the democracy it is supposed to be a representative of. As in Italy last week, the Bundestag is calling a meeting for 18th October for German MPs titled “Press freedom [...]
Statement by #occupyjustice outside the Valletta Police Station today. Six months ago, on 19th April, #occupyjustice activists visited the Valletta Police Station to pass to the police information they appeared not to have seen, though it was published on the world’s media: that Minister Chris Cardona knew alleged assassin Alfred Degiorgio and met him before Degiorgio [...]
Updated: Adds statement by Pierre Portelli On the morning after Chris Cardona was accused by a leading Italian daily of lying about how well he knew an assassin accused of killing a journalist, the party apparatchiks at the PN are busy managing a storm over who has the rights over a TV fiction. This is [...]
Stefan Grech who was convicted of anti-semitism and physical assault has said he intends to appeal the sentence. He continues to protest his innocence. In a statement sent to this website, Mr Grech denied being an anti-Semite. "I categorically deny having any racist or anti-semitic inclinations whatsoever. There is absolutely no history or instances linking [...]
Updated. Carries Pierre Portelli's reply. Nickie Vella de Fremeaux has used her Facebook account to publicly criticise, without naming him, PN media chief Pierre Portelli over a dispute the latter has with TV writer Sandro Vella. The issue is over copyright claims over TV soap Fattigi that Sandro Vella has claimed in court is his [...]
The BBC's John Sweeney will be delivering a Freedom Lecture in honour of Daphne Caruana Galizia on Monday 15th October. The event has been oversubscribed and booking is now closed. The event is also being moved to a larger venue to accommodate a larger audience. It will now be held at the Catholic Institute in [...]
La Repubblica reports today that two witnesses have told Magistrate Neville Camilleri that on 29 June 2017, four months before the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Minister Chris Cardona and lead assassin Alfred Degiorgio accused of killing Daphne Caruana Galizia, met at a bachelor’s party in a villa in Fawwara. This contradicts public statements made [...]
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 [...]
By Lizzie Eldridge: Prosit-proset, Ministru, for your reply to my article published last Monday which described in detail our conversation of Tuesday 18th September 2018, only days after you gave direct orders for flowers and candles to be removed from the now barricaded monument in Great Siege Square. Oh, you ordered that to be boarded [...]
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 [...]