The police received an anonymous tip-off claiming that a bomb was to be planted outside the house of The Malta Independent and The Malta Independent on Sunday columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia on Tuesday morning. It is understood that the phone call was made by means of a public pay phone on Paola.
The Malta Independent would like to express its solidarity with Daphne Caruana Galizia. Such a threat is a clear attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The threat was made a day after Ms Caruana Galizia attended a debate including the participation of the four political leaders, held at the University of Malta.
This is not the first time that journalists and columnists have been singled out for such treatment and this newspaper is calling for calm and tolerance in the days that remain until the election is held and beyond.
Asked to give her comments on what happened at University on Monday, Daphne Caruana Galizia said: “I was at the University debate as a guest of my 19-year-old son Paul, accompanied by my sister. My sister and I went there because it promised to be an interesting and unique event in the campaign: four political leaders facing an audience of students. I also planned to write about it for my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday (and will do so).
“While we were watching the proceedings, I look up to find three cameras trained on us – a television cameraman and a photographer literally in our faces, and a photographer with a zoom lens standing across the hall. This was a total invasion of privacy because, as you know, a television camera three feet away from our heads was able to pick up our conversation. I gathered that they were from the Labour media and that they had been instructed to keep the cameras on us as long as it would take to provoke a reaction. So for the 30 minutes they kept the camera lens in our faces, neither my sister nor I reacted or said a word. I didn’t ask them to move away because the camera was rolling and I didn’t want to be caught on film doing that. However, the photographer was especially annoying and a certain point I waved at him to move off. This photograph appeared on Maltastar.com with a headline and story saying that I had aggressively threatened and attacked the cameraman/photographer, and claimed that I shouted at them when I never even opened my mouth.
“After 30 minutes of having cameras shoved at us, Paul snapped, stood up and told them to eff off. Despite this, the cameraman stayed there filming, and the request was repeated.
“Once they had got what they wanted, the cameramen went off, and the clip was used repeatedly in every news bulletin, on ‘current affairs’ programmes, posted on Youtube, on Maltastar.com and circulated by Labour and AD activists. A right of reply letter was sent to Maltastar.com but wasn’t published.”