Thousands of people gathered in Valletta in a national protest organized by the civil society to express anger and challenge authorities to react to the brutal assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia killed last Monday.
Several demonstrators demanded the resignation of both the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the Leader of Nationalist Party Adrian Delia. This morning Prime Minister Muscat declared that he will not attend the protest so that he does not offend the journalist’s family following direct and personal attacks on him by the son of the victim. On the other hand, the Leader of the Opposition Party, Adrian Delia also declined from participating after rebel members of parliament within his party decided not to accompany the Leader during the demonstration.
During the event, demonstrators carried billboards, protesting against Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar and Attorney General Peter Grech accusing them of procrastinating to take action on the case. Other billboards bore Caruana Galizia’s last sentence in her last blog, a few minutes before the assassination “There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate”.
Christophe Deloire, Director of Reporters Without Borders addressed the crowd: “They want to silence us, but we will not give them more than a minute of silence,” adding that Caruana Galizia never gave up and neither are we.
At the end of the national protest, the civil society filed a request to the Prime Minister of Malta calling for the resignation of the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General, and requesting that the new constitutional representatives will be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Maltese Parliament.
The requests were also submitted to the President of the Republic of Malta Marie Louise Coleiro Preca. The demonstrators said that President Coleiro Preca should exercise moral authority to do justice. The President said that Monday’s assassination was an attack against the Maltese State and the people of Malta and appealed for national unity.
(ITALPRESS/MNA)

Source: medNews