Malta journalists take common stand after brutal murder
VALLETTA: Malta’s journalists rallied on Thursday to insist they would not be intimidated by the brutal assassination that silenced the island nation’s foremost investigative writer.
Hundreds of news industry workers gathered outside the parliament in Valletta, holding up front pages and placards splattered in blood red paint, as the sons of Daphne Caruana Galizia dismissed Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s offer of a reward to help find her killers and called for him to quit.
“This is one of the most despicable acts ever carried out in this country. Nobody deserves to die for exercising the right to speak,” said Herman Grech, online editor at The Times of Malta, reading a common statement on the industry’s behalf.
“We stand here today to give hope to society. This attack on one of us will not stop us from shining a light where others want darkness. The attack on one of us will not muzzle us. The attack on one of us will not stop us from fulfilling our role as a watchdog to the institutions. We will stand up to intimidation.”
The statement urged the government to promote press freedom and stop tolerating incitement against the free media. “We will not stop. We will not be afraid,” Grech concluded, to heavy applause.
Carrying a red-spattered Maltese flag, the journalists marched to the Courts of Justice, where an application was filed calling for the investigation into Caruana Galizia’s murder to ensure her sources are protected.
The anti-corruption campaigner was killed in a car bomb attack on Monday. Malta’s newspapers, broadcasters and online media, including the country’s many politically partisan outlets, will all carry a common message about press freedom on Sunday.
“We have agreed a campaign under the slogan: national ‘the pen conquers fear’,” Norma Saliba, chair of the Institute of Maltese Journalists, said.
“Many reporters have felt threatened. We have to report what the people want and need to know,” Saliba said.
The murder has caused international shock and prompted much soul-searching in Malta over whether the Mediterranean island is becoming a cesspit of corruption against the backdrop of an economic boom which some see as having allowed both organised crime and a kickbacks culture to flourish.
Muscat, who was in Brussels on Thursday, has ruled out quitting and has vowed, with the help of FBI investigators, to bring to justice those responsible for killing a reporter he has described as his “greatest adversary”.
Mark Wood, editor of The Sunday Times of Malta, said the industry needed to take up the baton from Caruana Galizia.