Man filmed clearing makeshift Daphne memorial in broad daylight

A makeshift memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia was cleared of her portraits on the day Labour supporters celebrated in Valletta, according to an onlooker who filmed the incident.

Footage captured at 2.30pm on Monday shows an apparently drunk man removing the tributes to the murdered journalist from the Great Siege Monument.

The photos were later found torn up in a nearby rubbish bin.

The memorial to Caruana Galizia, who was assassinated in a car bomb attack close to her home in 2017, has been repeatedly cleared of tributes over the years.

Occupy Justice activist Ann Demarco, who is among those who maintain the memorial, said the latest incident was not surprising.

“We expected this would happen with Labour supporters celebrating in Valletta,” she said. 

Labour supporters were in Valletta on Monday as Robert Abela was sworn in as prime minister. Caruana Galizia was a frequent critic of prominent Labour Party figures, including former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and members of his cabinet. 

Demarco called the clearing of the memorial “the fruit of demonisation that continues even now”.

Laying the blame for the “hatred” directed towards Caruana Galizia’s memory and the repeated defacing of the memorial at the Labour Party and Abela’s feet, she said, “the PL refuses to accept that she was a journalist who was murdered”.

Pushed on why she believed the man seen in the video to be a Labour supporter, Demarco emphasised that “random people don’t usually tear up photos of murdered people; they only do that if they hate them”.

She said the tensions over Caruana Galizia’s death would “never change unless the [Labour] party leads the way”.

In a Facebook post responding to the clearing of the memorial, Occupy Justice stressed that a democratic country “does not fear flowers, candles, photographs, banners, or questions” or “repeatedly attack the memory of a murdered journalist”.

“We have, of course, replaced our protest site and will continue to do so despite its continued destruction. This memorial remains as long as justice remains to be served”, the post reads.

Matthew Caruana Galizia, son of the murdered journalist and director of the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, said: "Why was this man so triggered? I think he destroyed the memorial because he knows she was right about corruption, and hates being reminded of it". 

"But that's its purpose, to show how far we have left to go. And if we get there, it would be because as a collective of people we didn't let our country forget".

The memorial to Caruana Galizia was created two days after her assassination, but for months was repeatedly cleared by public maintenance employees at night, with a court later being told that then Justice Minister Owen Bonnici – now culture minister – had ordered its clearing.

Civil society activist and blogger Manuel Delia later won a constitutional case filed against the government in a bid to stop the memorial being cleared.

However it has continued to be cleared, particularly by Labour blogger Neville Gafà, who placed his own placards at the site in what he described as an exercise in free speech.