Press freedom groups call for safe space for Caruana Galizia mourners

Press union representatives and writers from PEN International have written to justice minister Owen Bonnici requesting he recognises people’s freedom of assembly at the shrine for the assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Valletta. 

Mourners have been gathering every month to mark the murder of Caruana Galizia, killed on 16 October 2017 in a car bomb outside her home, at the Great Siege monument in Valletta. 

But workers from the cleansing department have repeatedly removed candles and wreaths from the monument, which only last month was cordoned off for restoration purposes. 

In an open letter on behalf of PEN International, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, and the International Press Institute, Carles Torner said he was dismayed that the tributes laid at the monument during the first anniversary of Caruana Galizia’s death had been removed on order of the ministry. “We believe this is an unacceptable violation of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful protest,” the PEN executive director said. 

The organisations had already met Bonnici and raised their concern about the repeated removal of the protest memorial. “The memorial, a form of peaceful protest against her assassination and a demand for justice, has been destroyed more than 60 times and was boarded up by the Ministry for Justice, Culture, and Local Government in September 2018,” Torner wrote in his letter. 

“We asked you during our meeting to ensure a safe and enabling environment for freedom of assembly and the right to protest, in particular at the site of the memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia until such time as those who ordered her murder are brought to justice.” 

The organisations called upon Bonnici fulfil the Maltese government’s stated commitment towards freedom of expression ensuring that the peaceful protest monument remains as long as people wish to honour the memory of Caruana Galizia. 

Three men have so far been arrested and charged with carrying out the execution of Caruana Galizia, although police are still investigating the motive for the murder and who commissioned the murder.