The Nationalist Party will be instructing the people to disregard and disobey the new media law as it is being proposed by the government, a law that aims to control the internet and freedom of speech, leader Simon Busuttil said today.

Speaking in Birkirkara, Dr Busuttil said that the Opposition will be battling against the introduction of the law in Parliament, and if it passes as the government is suggesting, it will tell people not to obey it because it goes against freedom of expression.

It will also be among the first laws to be repealed by a new PN government. Minister Owen Bonnici can now be described as the Minister of Censorship, Dr Busuttil said and, quoting from an interview carried with media expert Antonio Ghio on The Malta Independent on Sunday, Owen Bonnici has failed miserably.

Three years ago, the PN had proposed that freedom of the internet is included in the Constitution of the country. What Labour is doing today is the complete opposite as it attempts to muzzle people’s thoughts and opinions.

The government’s idea to have current affairs websites being registered – and imposing a €1,000 fine if they don’t – will keep people away from expressing themselves, Dr Busuttil said.

Earlier in his address, Dr Busttil dwelt at length on the visit by the European Parliament’s PANA Committee, which was in Malta to investigate the Panama Papers scandal.

The conclusion reached by the committee, Dr Busuttil said, was that it was a “textbook case of money laundering”.

Minister Konrad Mizzi and OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri were caught having opened secret companies in Panama by a company named Mossack Fonseca, whose two directors are now in jail facing several charges.

Dr Busuttil said that money laundering charges in Malta could lead to an 18-year jail term and a €2.5 million fine. He said that it’s not the PN that is saying that what Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri did was wrong; it was a Green and Socialist MEP who said that the case in hand is “weird” and “scandalous”. The Socialist MEP also asked what is keeping Konrad Mizzi from handing in his resignation.

In all of this, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat remained silent. Why has he not taken action?, Dr Busuttil asked. Is it because if he kick them out, he will have to kick himself out with them too? It is clear, he added, that Joseph Muscat cannot tell Mizzi and Schembri to go because they know too much about him.

Joseph Muscat also showed himself as being too weak when he did not order Schembri to appear before the PANA committee, Dr Busuttil said, adding that Konrad Mizzi has also been caught lying to the PANA committee.

Dr Busuttil again brought up the third company to be opened in Panama apart from those of Mizzi and Schembri. He said that after a year in hiding, Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna had said that Egrant belongs to him. But he is not being believed, the PN leader said.

He also lashed out at the inefficiency of the police commissioner who, he said, seems to be there to defend the government’s interests rather than those of the public.

Reminding his audience that the commissioner in place is the fifth to be appointed by the government in less than four years, Dr Busuttil said that instead of Mizzi and Schembri resigning their positions, it was the last commissioner Michael Cassar and the previous Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit director Manfred Galdes who had resigned, after the latter had presented the FIAU’s conclusions on its Panama Papers investigation to the police.

Dr Busuttil said he will kick out the police commissioner the moment the PN returns to government because he (the police chief, whom he never mentioned by name) does not hold his (Dr Busuttil’s) confidence.

The police are also failing on security issues, he said, mentioning the explosion of a car bomb in a busy street last Monday. The government is more concerned on how to cover its back than to concentrate on security in the country.

In a statement, the government said that the pressure being made on the police by Simon Busuttil is a danger to democracy.

Busuttil went on a hysterical speech symptomatic of a politician in despair, the government said. He continued his attacks on institutions such as the police, including the commissioner, and this after the PN failed to invest in the corps during its 25 years of administration

Hysterical seems to be the new buzzword for the Labour government with regard to Dr Busuttil, as it was also used by Justice Minister Owen Bonnici to criticise the Opposition Leader’s comments on the new media law.

He said that what the government is proposing is the way forward and there is a general consensus about this, leaving Busuttil as the only discordant voice.