New photos of Daphne Caruana Galizia, along with candles, which were laid on the Great Siege Memorial after the Victory Day commemoration have been removed by the authorities, the Nationalist Party said.

The monument, opposite the law courts in Valletta, has hosted a makeshift memorial to the slain journalist since her assassination in 2017.

The memorial was removed ahead of the Victory Day wreath-laying ceremony on Saturday. But new photos, flowers and candles put on the memorial after the ceremony were also removed by the authorities. 

"This shows the Labour government's contempt to freedom of expression and confirms it wants the people to forget Daphne Caruana Galizia and her writing," the shadow minister for justice, Karol Aquilina said. 

He said the PN expected the government to respect the January 2020 Constitutional Court judgement where the government was found to have breached freedom of expression by having repeatedly removed photos, flowers and candles from the memorial.  

On Sunday, Jason Micallef, Labour Party official and chairman of the Valletta Cultural Agency, wrote on Facebook that national monuments needed to be well maintained and any other activity which disfigured such monuments as if nothing was happening shamed the country.

On Saturday, the NGO Occupy Justice protested about the removal of the Daphne memorial for the Victory Day commemoration.

"Why can’t there be a commemoration without obliterating the memory of a murdered journalist, whose family are still waiting for justice?" the NGO asked.

A spokesperson for the NGO said another picture of Caruana Galizia along with candles were later again placed on the memorial.