Yes, paranoia has truly set in – and is rapidly descending into craziness

The General Workers Union’s news portal, iNews, and its daily newspaper, L-Orizzont, have published their big scoop on “somebody who works for the government and who is undermining it from within by sending a photograph to Daphne Caruana Galizia who admits that she has an international network of spies”.

You’re probably laughing already, but don’t – because it really isn’t funny. It’s frightening. It’s frightening that they have a complete irony bypass and take the word ‘spies’ literally. But it’s even more frightening that the government which started out just three years ago cushioned and triumphant with the comfort of a 36,000 majority vote and a battle-cry of Malta Taghna Lkoll has now descended into the depths of paranoia, working to root out Enemies of the State and Those Who Are Against Us.

These are the tactics of those who have already become addicted to power (or the money they are making from it) and who are absolutely terrified of losing it through the normal processes of democracy. They are North Korean tactics, Beijing tactics, Baku tactics, Saudi tactics, UAE tactics. And we don’t want them here. This is a European Union member state and we are free. We want to stay free.

Read the story which I reproduce below. Almost two years ago, this website carried a photograph of Silvio Abela standing outside the Ministry of Tourism killing time. The focus of the story was that Abela, a well-off businessman who owns a company which trades in camping and leisure gear and which imports The North Face clothing to Malta, had been put on the public pay-roll in a ‘position of trust’ at the Tourism Ministry, by Minister Edward Zammit Lewis. I also added – and this is documented by news photographs – that the Prime Minister and Mrs Muscat routinely promoted Abela’s products by wearing The North Face brand prominently to places they were likely to be photographed. I asked what they got in return for doing this, or what Silvio Abela got in return for giving them free clothes.

Almost two years later (this morning), L-Orizzont and iNews carry their massive scoop: a photograph of a man they say is Jurgen Cassar (it’s taken at a distance and his face isn’t visible) who they say is taking a photograph (you can’t see that, because of the distance) of a man they claim is Silvio Abela (who isn’t identifiable either because of that distance).

They then link this spurious rubbish with the photograph of Abela which appeared on my website and launch a massive attack on Cassar. He is a government employee, L-Orizzont and iNews say, who is undermining the government from within. But Cassar does not work for the government. He works in the Office of the Ombudsman, which is separate from the government and set up under the Constitution of Malta. It is horrific that the General Workers Union sees the Office of the Ombudsman as part of the government.

I do not know Jurgen Cassar from Adam and he has sent me no photographs or information. I do not have his email address or telephone number, so much so that I have had to ring around for his number – having tried him at the office, but he is away – to ask what action he plans to take about this matter. I have also posted comments under the story on iNews denying that he sent me any such picture and suggesting that these North Korean tactics do the government no good at all, but rather the opposite.

But even if it were Jurgen Cassar, and even if he were a government employee, which he is not, this would still be a terrible approach for the General Workers Union, which is so firmly linked to the governing Labour Party, to take. It is not against the law to take photographs in these situations. It is not against the law to send them in to a newspaper. The regulations governing the interaction of government employees with the press apply to their work for the government. Taking a photograph of a government employee loitering outside a government ministry and sending it in to the press does not constitute copying confidential documents at the office where you work and leaking them to the press.

If the government considers that there is a reason to reprimand one of its employees for leaking things to the press – which does not apply in this case – then it should deal with the matter privately and internally and not by public exposure in this shocking, Beijing manner. The point of these Beijing tactics is to expose the victim or victims to the opprobrium of party diehards who will then call for his scalp, as is happening already on the comments-board, and pour encourager les autres – in other words, to demonstrate to others who may be thinking of doing something similar what will happen to them if they are found out: exposure to the baying, bawling, blood-hungry Labour throng.

There’s another point: so much for all that talk about the Whistleblower Act. Apparently, the only reason they enacted it was to use a corrupt trader (we forget that in corruption, it takes two) to nail “Giovanna Debono’s husband”. Now they don’t need it anymore for the foreseeable future.

I have also reproduced the best, most pointed, comment left by a reader under the story on iNews.

Alex Saliba is a party activist and key member of the Labour Youth Forum