The most high-profile conviction over a case related to cyber-harassment – that of Cyrus Engerer convicted of distributing compromising pictures of his former partner without his consent – is yet to elicit an official reaction from the Anti-Cyber Harassment Alliance (ACHA).
But one of its members – MEP Joseph Cuschieri – actually weighed in on the issue at a Labour Party political activity yesterday. Ironically, given his involvement in the ACHA, he only did so in defence of Mr Engerer. Attempts to contact former MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who was instrumental in setting up the alliance, were unsuccessful.
Last Thursday, Mr Engerer received a two-year suspended jail sentence after he was convicted, on appeal, of distributing porn and related charges of taking compromising photographs from his former partners’ computer and surreptitiously distributing them to others – including his former partner’s employer – through an email address created specifically for this purpose.
Mr Cuschieri, the head of the Labour Party’s delegation in the European Parliament, was given the opportunity to open a political activity in Paola which featured European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who is the Party of European Socialists’ candidate for the presidency of the European Commission.
After a brief introduction in English for Mr Schulz’s benefit, he switched to his native Maltese, and immediately declared that he wanted to show solidarity with his friend.
He declared that he had little to add to what Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had already said on the issue – Dr Muscat had strongly defended Mr Engerer at a political activity in Mqabba the previous evening, in which Mr Engerer himself took the stage.
But he did exclaim, to the enthusiastic applause of those present, that “no one can ever destroy soldiers of steel like us,” using a term originally coined by former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff to describe those who voted for Labour despite a Church interdiction in 1962 and which has been repeatedly used by Dr Muscat in the ongoing election campaign.
Mr Cuschieri emphasised that the party stood in support of one of its own who was going through a difficult moment.
The MEP then went on to pay tribute to former PL politicians who hailed from the area, including the late Karl Chircop and former ministers Censu Moran and Lorry Sant.
Mr Sant, coincidentally, had once threatened fellow MP Wenzu Mintoff – who had resigned as party whip – with a brown envelope full of photographs which he placed on the table of the House, and which have not been made public.
Yesterday, the Cyrus Engerer case was also the subject of a press conference held outside Labour Party headquarters by the Nationalist Party.
Earlier in the morning, Dr Muscat was specifically asked whether he condemned Mr Engerer’s actions, but after insisting that this was a loaded question, he studiously avoided answering it. Instead, he praised Mr Engerer as one of Malta’s leading campaigners on gay rights, and once more insisted that there were unusual coincidences in the timing of the case.
He did point out that Mr Engerer made the right decision when he withdrew his candidature for the European Parliament elections, only to go on to make an appeal to hypocrisy by pointing out that a PN MP has been convicted of a crime while another admitted to wrongdoing,
The Prime Minister did not name names, but a PL press release issued later in the day mentioned Claudio Grech’s conviction over a falsified ID card, which dates back to 1996.