Seven international press freedom and human rights organisations have called on EU leaders from France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain currently in Malta for the South EU Summit to “address the ongoing impunity in the case of assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia”. Read in full.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”103210″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]“The murder,” says journalist Caroline Muscat, “was a message to the country that whoever investigates those in power and makes corruption visible, has to fear for his life. So we had to send a message back.”
Muscat seems to be in an adrenaline rush while talking in her apartment in a small town in the north of Malta. The interview was postponed twice for an hour because she had to convene with her colleagues about new stories for The Shift, the journalistic website that she and a colleague launched early November 2017. It was just weeks after the shock of the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. The Shift is the message Caroline Muscat sent back to the perpetrators.
Malta doesn’t have a lot of independent journalism. Even media outlets that are not tied to a political party, have opaque ties with the political and entrepreneurial establishment. It is because of such ties that Caroline Muscat quit her job at the widely read Times of Malta in 2016: in publications about the leaked documents known as the Panama Papers, Caruana Galizia revealed that the managing director of the Times’ publisher was implicated too.
“I could not continue to work for the Times,” she says. She freelanced and made plans to start an investigative online paper, to be launched in the spring of 2018. Caruana Galizia’s murder accelerated the launch.
“Our goal is to hold those in power to account,” Muscat says.
That’s not a spectacular goal for a journalistic project. It does lead to remarkable choices though. Muscat tells about the arrest, in December 2017, of three men suspected of placing the bomb in Caruana Galizia’s car and detonating it. “We didn’t publish that news,” Muscat says. “We were immediately criticised about that. A government official even attacked me on Twitter, asking why The Shift didn’t publish about this breakthrough in the investigation.”
She explains – and still gets furious: “The men were detained with a grand show of force. In Malta, there are only a few people who know how to make bombs. Why weren’t they taken earlier? The arrested men have no motive for the murder. We want to know who is behind Daphne’s death. The arrests were a way to conceal that no serious investigation is carried out into the murder. As a journalist, I refuse to contribute to such a scheme.”
By performing journalism that way, The Shift works in the spirit of Running Commentary, the blog of Caruana Galizia. Also, Caruana Galizia didn’t care a bit about good contacts with powerful key figures in politics and business but investigated and scrutinised them, to attack if necessary. Muscat, however, resists the idea that she is following in Caruana Galizia’s footsteps: “Nobody can replace Daphne. She has been the target of hate campaigns and threats for years. Her dogs were murdered, her house was set ablaze. We often ran into each other because we worked on the same kind of stories, but she worked alone, I worked for an established paper. I was protected. She wasn’t.”
After resigning from the Times of Malta, Muscat also lost her protection, which became all the clearer when she started The Shift. An intense disinformation and hate campaign was launched against her, especially on social media, just as had happened to Caruana Galizia. Muscat and her family are, without any grounds, being connected to alcoholism, arms trade and prostitution. In secret Facebook groups linked to the governing Labour Party – where contributors to The Shift went undercover for half a year – pictures of Caruana Galizia and Muscat surfaced, accompanied by hateful comments (“She got what she deserved,” and “She deserves some bombs too”), generously supplied with likes by sometimes highly placed government figures.
Muscat immediately notices when a picture of hers has been doing the rounds again in such online networks. “This week the owner of a grocery shop asked me if I was the woman who publishes articles online. I am starting to get an idea now of the pressure under which Daphne has lived for years. Every aspect of my life has become difficult,” Muscat says.
The Shift welcomes some hundred thousand visitors per month and lives from donations. Muscat does other freelance journalistic work if necessary to earn enough income. Maybe, when the visitor stats rise, they will try to get revenues from advertisements. They usually publish several stories per day, both backgrounds and investigative work and analyses and columns. Muscat: “The Shift is journalism, but it is a movement too. Yes, I have an agenda. My agenda is press freedom, democracy, rule of law. We don’t have the luxury anymore to demand anything else. No, I don’t think The Shift will find the final piece of the puzzle that will solve Daphne’s murder. Such an expectation is unrealistic. All we can do is continue to investigate and contribute to adding pieces of the puzzle.”
Does she fear for her life? She circles around the question. She seems unable to ponder the issue. She does, however, point to an important difference between The Shift and Caruana Galizia’s blog: “The Shift doesn’t depend on me. We have a team. If one of us falls away, The Shift will continue.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1539599196129-2228dcb5-22a8-7″ taxonomies=”18781″][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI3MDAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm1hcHBpbmdtZWRpYWZyZWVkb20udXNoYWhpZGkuaW8lMkZzYXZlZHNlYXJjaGVzJTJGOTMlMkZtYXAlMjIlMjBmcmFtZWJvcmRlciUzRCUyMjAlMjIlMjBhbGxvd2Z1bGxzY3JlZW4lM0UlM0MlMkZpZnJhbWUlM0U=[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column][/vc_row]
“It’s going up against a lot of people who would rather the investigation doesn’t go as far it should,” Paul Caruana Galizia, son of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, said about the ongoing inquiry into her murder ahead of the one-year anniversary of her killing.
“If it is allowed to be run completely without constraints and completely without political inference, then the implications for Malta are quite big. It would be an investigation that really shakes the country up, shakes up its establishment, shakes up the way institutions work.”
Paul talked to Index about the implications of his mother’s murder in Malta on 16 October 2017. He believes freedom of expression in the country is in a “critical” state. He said: “Now that she’s been killed it sends a shocking, dramatic signal to everyone else may be thinking about reporting on these issues. It’s become a bigger problem than it ever was.”
When his mother was assassinated with a car bomb last year, the case received worldwide attention. The anti-corruption journalist, who began her career in 1988, was dubbed “the only ethical voice left” by fellow Maltese blogger Manuel Delia. Her death has left a noticeable hole in the media landscape of Malta, not just in terms of journalism but in the ongoing fight for freedom of expression — a battle that she waged for thirty years, says Paul.
“No matter how many people told her she was wrong, and she should just keep quiet, or she should just stop causing a scene; no matter the misogyny she suffered, the online abuse, physical harassment, or investigations into her private account — she just kept writing,” said Paul. “To be that person you have to have a really strong confidence in yourself and ability in your understanding of what you’re covering. She was really a force and unlike anyone I will meet again.”
Paul spoke with great passion about his mother and her work, after a year when he and his brothers struggled to keep public attention on the case. He was advised to leave Malta immediately after his mother’s funeral and a guard now stands outside his family home 24 hours a day because of threats.
“It’s a very personal thing what motivates a journalist to carry on writing in the face of all those threats and violence,” said Paul, “for my mother it was that you can’t just leave things alone, you can’t let injustice carry on, you can’t, in her words, just let people get away with it.” And Daphne certainly didn’t let people get away with it. She exposed numerous Maltese politicians linked to the Panama Papers scandal in 2016. Corrupt officials weren’t her only targets, with one of her reports revealing a link between Malta’s online gambling industry and organised crime. She also covered stories involving police officers, including deputy police commissioner Silvio Valletta, who was allowed to take part in the investigation into her death.
Valletta’s wife Justyne Caruana, a government minister, was also the subject of criticism by Daphne, which is why Paul and his family pushed for Valetta’s dismissal from the case. Malta’scourt of appeal has ruled that Valletta must desist from taking part in the investigation. The governmentsaid it will appeal the decision, something Paul calls “astonishing”.
Maltese MP Chris Said introduced a private member’s bill in parliament calling for a board of inquiry to follow up on investigations Daphne was pursuing before her death back in October 2017. However, Paul and his family were shocked to find “every single MP in parliament” not only voted down this motion but proposed amendments which replaced the inquiry with words of praise for Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the police force.
“There’s a more important question as far as we are concerned, and it’s whether my mother’s life could have been saved — whether there was anything the state could have done to protect her life.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1539182143626-ac83defd-654a-0″ taxonomies=”18781, 18782″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Dear Prime Minister Joseph Muscat,
I write to you on behalf of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom and 24 organisations representing thousands of journalists and human rights activists concerning Malta’s response to the assassination of journalist Ms Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Following her murder on 16 October 2017, the Maltese authorities initiated criminal proceedings against the men who allegedly detonated the bomb that killed Ms Caruana Galizia and a parallel magisterial inquiry into whether others should be charged with criminal offences for commissioning the alleged assassins. Both the criminal proceedings and magisterial inquiry focus solely on criminal culpability. Neither process is investigating the wider and even more serious question as to whether the Maltese state is responsible for the circumstances that led to Ms Caruana Galizia’s death.
Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires Malta – as a Member State of the Council of Europe – to comply with its protective obligation by examining (a) whether Malta knew, or ought to have known, of a real and immediate risk to Ms Caruana Galizia’s life; (b) the adequacy of any steps taken by Malta to guard against that risk; and (c) any steps that Malta needs to take to prevent future deaths of journalists and/or anti-corruption campaigners.
On 9 August 2018, a team of international lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers and Bhatt Murphy Solicitors in London issued a legal opinion finding that Malta has failed to institute any inquiry into whether the Maltese state bears any responsibility for the loss of Ms Caruana Galizia’s life. Following the legal opinion, the family has submitted the following request to your government:
To establish a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act that is completely independent of the Maltese police, Government and politicians, and that is conducted by a panel of respected international judges, retired judges and/or suitably qualified individuals with no political or government links.
We fully support the request and urge you to reconsider your position[1] and to respond immediately and positively to the request of the family of Ms Caruana Galizia. Protecting the lives and voices of journalists in Malta and across Europe depends upon this public inquiry. There is nothing to fear from this inquiry but the truth.
Seeking justice for Ms Caruana Galizia and protection for those who continue her legacy remains our top priority.
We would appreciate your written response to our appeal.
Flutura Kusari
Legal Advisor
The European Centre for
Press and Media Freedom [email protected]
+383 49 236 664
[1] Interview of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, BBC Radio, 22 September 2018, available here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/b0bkzk0d (minute 49)
Access Info
aditus foundation
Article 21
Blueprint for Free Speech
European Federation of Journalists
Global Editors Network
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
Integra Foundation
OBC Transeuropa/ Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale
Ossigeno per l’Informazione
Platform of Human Rights Organisations in Malta (PHROM)
Press Emblem Campaign
Transparency International
The Critical Institute
The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1539072348469-371fa85b-ad24-0″ taxonomies=”18782″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
