Veteran journalist Victor Vella has been suspended as the editor of newspapers L-Orizzont and it-Torca by Union Print, although the General Workers' Union insists that this did not happen as a result of his editoral stance with the newspapers.
Vella has been working with Union Print, which is owned by the General Workers’ Union, for the last 27 years.
Newsbook reported on Sunday night that Vella has been suspended by high-ups within the GWU.
It is understood that Vella was suspended after he refused to give in to pressure to adjust his socially-inclined editorial stance, which saw space being given to human stories focusing on poverty, precarious work, foreign workers, and on humane stories related to migration.
However, later on Monday, a GWU spokesperson told MaltaToday that Vella was not suspended by the union but by the company Union Print which publishes the newspapers.
The spokesperson stressed that it is not true that Vella was suspended due to an editorial line. In fact, he insisted that the GWU was defending Vella, MaltaToday said.
The GWU will be founding a board of discipline to hear the case, although the union is seemingly expecting Vella to resign off his own accord.
Both Vella and GWU President Victor Carachi refused to comment when contacted by MaltaToday, with Vella citing the pending internal disciplinary proceedings against him as the reason for his lack of comment.
Vella’s wife took to Facebook last Thursday, when the Pope’s visit to Malta for next April was confirmed, and wrote that “someone should draw the Pope’s attention to the fact that in Malta we let people drown in the Mediterranean, we speak about abortion when it suits us, we don’t pay proper wages, and we try to do everything we can to shut up whoever dares open their mouth.”
The latter part of that sentence is understood to be a reference to Vella.
PEN Malta to GWU: Reinstate Victor Vella as editor
The President of PEN Malta wrote to the General Workers' Union leadership demanding that the suspension Victor Vella is lifted immediately, and internal charges against him dropped.
In a letter sent to the union's president, secretary general and chief executive officer, PEN Malta President Immanual Mifsud said: "I express our disgust at your decision to investigate editor Victor Vella on trivial charges that expose your leadership to ridicule. ... Mr Vella is being disciplined for doing his job, as a journalist and editor, of giving a voice to those who need to be heard by people in power. Vella was not afraid to show where politics has let down workers in precarious jobs, immigrants, the marginalised and those living in extreme poverty."
Mifsud asked the GWU leadership to publicly state its new policies in case it made any revisions to its positions on refugee rights, migrant workers' rights, precarious labour and racism. "In the meantime, the charges against Vella should be dropped immediately. Vella should be allowed back to work and given all the resources to keep doing his job," Mifsud said.
The IGM meanwhile said that it is concerned with the decision taken by Union Print to suspend its editor Victor Vella.
“While the General Workers’ Union, which owns Union Print, has publicly said the suspension is tied to administrative issues, from the facts known to the IĠM, it appears that the real reason is linked to editorial decisions taken by Vella and which did not go down well with the company’s management,” the institute said.
“While a company has the right to appoint an editor it considers best placed to advance its beliefs, it does not appear that Vella departed from the principles that underpin the Union Print,” it said.
The IGM expressed solidarity with Vella and condemns the disproportionate action taken against him by Union Print.