Updated | Former GWU boss Tony Zarb’s inflammatory Facebook post likens protestors to prostitutes

Former General Workers Union boss Tony Zarb launched an inflammatory and misogynistic tirade on Facebook, suggesting female protestors outside Castille were ‘prostitutes’.

His comment was in reaction to an #OccupyJustice event where women camped out on Castille place to demand the resignation of the Commissioner of Police, in the wake of the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“Good evening friends. These have gone to the wrong place. Instead of Castille they should have gone to Strait Street and went back to the 1960s, where they would have truly found their rightful place to heat things up,” Zarb said in a reference to the former red light district in Valletta, just two streets away from Castille place.

“These are traitors of Malta, because they form part of a crowd of assassins who want to take power at all costs. I’m sure that if they feel cold they will find someone to warm them up.”

Screenshot of Tony Zarb's Facebook post on the #OccupyJustice protest

READ ALSO: GWU condemns discriminatory language 'from wherever it comes'

Zarb - who in 2016 was granted a part-time consultant's post with then minister without portfolio Konrad Mizzi - later removed the post: “If there are genuine women who may have not enjoyed what I said, I apologise because it’s the only honourable thing to do.”

Zarb, whose Facebook poster is a photograph of him with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, was at first met with the artless posts of supporters with suggestions that overnight protestors “would stink”, with someone going as far as saying they needed “a visit from the Spanish police to sweep them away” – a reference to the police violence during the Catalan referendum vote.

Then, a volley of outrage came into his wall, accusing Zarb of posting a sexist message, “inciting violence against women”, in the words of James Debono, one of the speakers during last Sunday’s Civil Society Network demonstration in Valletta.

Another female commenter said: “Shame. Is that how you value women? Your wife has little to be proud of a husband who speaks on women like her in this way. Shame on the women in this post who are agreeing with your sexist comment.”

Another said: “Shame on you Tony Zarb. Your name-calling doesn’t weaken these strong, determined women, but only shows you up as the ignorant misogynistic bastard we have learnt to tolerate. You, and ‘men’ like you, are what is wrong with this country, which pretends to be European but still embraces a culture which is threatened by women who refuse to be oppressed, and reacts by insinuating they are prostitutes.”

Zarb then followed up with another post, saying “there are many pining for the right to freedom of expression, but theirs alone. Hypocites.”

To which one commenter, employing his own right to freedom of expression, reacted with: “Tony Zarb, you're a piece of sh*t.”

Tony Zarb has promised to stay away from Facebook

Zarb later pulled down the offensive post and apologise, going one step further and promising to stay away from Facebook.

There has been vitriol from all sides. Manuel Delia, former right-hand man to Nationalist minister Austin Gatt, now turned blogger, described the deputy OPM communications chief Matthew Carbone as a “terrorist” for snapping photos of protestors with his mobile phone.

“Unless he’s a fetishist with a particular proclivity for angry women, and from what I hear he is not, he is taking close photos of protesters to profile those opposing his employer,” ran the first innuendo.

“He was standing around with members of the international press… Matthew Carbone will not be embarrassed by this post. He wanted to be seen. He wanted to be noticed. Because terrorists want their actions known to the world. That is how terror works.”

Condemnation from PN MPs

In a statement, the PN’s five women MPs and MEP called for a condemnation of Zarb’s comments. “No government should be silent before such a mentality that shows such disdain for any woman, especially in a country that is committed to gender equality, the fight against violence on women, and to build a society that can respect women’s dignity. We expect a condemnation,” MEP Roberta Metsola and MPs Therese Comodini Cachia, Claudette Buttigieg, Kristy Debono and Maria Deguara said.

Jason Azzopardi called for the removal of Zarb's state honour

“This is a call to the government to move from words to action, by distancing itself from what was expressed by its own consultant, Tony Zarb.”

In a Tweet, Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi said Zarb's inflammatory comments were a crime and according to the provisions of the Gieh ir-Repubblika Act, Zarb should be stripped of his honour.