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Published: January 19, 2014 at 3:58pm

Posted by Edward:

I think it is wise to point out a fundamental aspect of this situation which seems to have gone unnoticed and is starting to become the main focus of this issue: freedom of speech.

This issue has brought to light the PL’s idea of what freedom is, that it is all perfectly fine until it taints the image of ‘Malta’, for which read the Labour government.

Malta first and foremost, that ultra conservative and oppressive phrase, silences us all. We are not allowed to voice our opinions when they are negative ones because we all have to make Malta (the Labour government) look good.

It goes to show that the PL has no idea what today’s values are and what other countries admire about each other. It is not the ability to silence your critics, bully your opposition into submission, steamroll your way through parliament and call anyone who disagrees with your policies and who is vocal about it a ‘traitor’.

Actually it is the very freedom to speak out against your government without fear or favour that is the basic value all western countries demand. Telling people that we cannot do this on television, which ends up on YouTube and is watched by foreign politicians, tarnishes Malta.

This issue has brought about a discussion on the most elementary values of democracy. You can damn well bet that many people are now going to pin Muscat to the floor on this one. They will not budge until the scheme is scrapped.

This is not just because they don’t like it, but also to remind him that no one wants Mintoff or his ideologies around any longer. Mintoff belongs to the past. Muscat’s way of doing things is not fresh. It is straight from a past that Europe rejected completely 24 years ago with the fall of the Berlin wall.




6 Comments Comment

  1. Pippa says:

    Prosit.

  2. MS says:

    Labour is a fundamentalist party that uses the tools of democracy in order to get elected and then discards them once it gains power.

    I pity those who think they’re exempt from retribution because it’s ‘their’ government.

    In an undemocratic state even an honest mistake can and will be interpreted as an act of treason regardless of how loyal you claim to be.

    In a democracy, when the voice of dissent is loud enough, the government rethinks and backtracks.

    In Malta, the Opposition, the people and even the European Parliament condemned the sale of EU citizenship, but the prime minister didn’t even flinch. He’s not there to govern Malta responsibly for the benefit of its people. He’s there purely to impose his will on others in some kind of sick power-game.

    And then they had the brass neck to call Gonzi a dictator. Where are all those who booed the former prime minister and called him ‘dictator’? Hiding beneath their sofas as they observe the results of their insane stupidity?

  3. Gaetano Pace says:

    Silencing people is one of the worst attacks attacks on democracy. Silencing them, or trying to do so, by means of violence, fear and persecution is base, degenerate and cowardly.

    That is exactly how Labour acted with me for the simple reason that I would not bow to their suggestions of corruption, would not give in to their threats.

    I remember in the worst of this treatment, KMB was addressing a Labour mass meeting at Marsaxlokk. He named me by my name and called me “Traditur tal-haddiem”. Ever since I have come to realise how significant my name is and have ever since never been afraid to show it in public, even when I contribute to this blog.

    Another instance was when my brother, PS 175 George Pace, was being subject to threats and intimidation, to ill treatment, just because I – also a police officer – refused to obey corrupt and abusive orders. They tried to get to me by subjecting my brother to ill-treatment and discrimination.

    He used to apply for the examination of promotion to police inspector. One of the conditions was that an applicant must not have had disciplinary charges brought against him in the preceding year. He had disciplinary charges abusively brought against him just before the examination. This happened six times, that is, with six examinations.

  4. Francis Saliba MD says:

    Malta is NOT the Labour Party.

    In the “citizenship for sale” controversy the Labour Party’s interests are actually antagonistic and inimical to the interests of Malta and of the rest of Europe.

    The Malta Labour Party’s hidden agenda is better suited to serve the covert needs of hidden hands seeking clandestine infiltration into Europe.

    Malta should not be a promoter of, or an accomplice in, such schemes.

    Muscat’s obdurate intransigence begs the question: “Cui bono”? because most certainly it is against the interests of either Malta or of the rest of Europe.

  5. vic says:

    a traitor is someone who sells Malta to Henley and Something

  6. fanny says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25798320
    And in the meantime in Kiev. Protests against new laws restricting demos. It is an eternal worldwide fight to keep democracy alive. It never seems to end.

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