Mech Dara, an award-winning Cambodian journalist who reported extensively on corruption, has been arrested and charged with incitement.
Government officials accused him of uploading social posts showing “edited pictures” of a “tourist attraction”, which they claimed was “fake”. His posts, they warned, could “incite social unrest”.
Five police cars intercepted his vehicle when he stopped at a highway toll booth and he was detained. For 24 hours his family didn’t even know where he was. The next day he was charged with incitement in a Phnom Penh courtroom.
He’s now being held in pre-trial detention, and when he is eventually convicted, as he inevitably will, he faces two years’ imprisonment.
The government claimed his posts were “full of ill-intention – inciting, causing anger among the public and intended to make people think bad of the government”.
Meanwhile, a short 9,000 kilometres away in Malta, Prime Minister Robert Abela was spewing the same threatening rhetoric: “A small clique of people who pretend to be journalists but aren’t…only want to destroy those in public life.” Like Cambodia’s officials, Abela was making false accusations against those who “pretend to be journalists”.
Abela must be salivating at the thought of how easy it is for his Cambodian counterparts to silence their critics. He must be devising new ways of achieving his objective of outperforming Cambodia in its repressive tactics.
His former Labour Party president, Ramona Attard called for the re-criminalisation of libel at the party general conference to the delirious enthusiasm of party delegates.
Abela was asked point blank: Do you agree with Attard? He refused to give a straight answer. It was a simple yes-no question. But Abela slithered out of it. Yet, he left little doubt that he was in full agreement with her.
The decriminalisation of libel, Abela commented, was being abused “by a small group of people who feel entitled to preach about what’s right but have a malignant agenda”. Exactly, then, like Dara, the award-winning journalist exposing corruption whose government accused him of “ill-intention”.
“There should be options to address these matters,” Abela demanded, while hinting at imminent legal amendments. Abela is furious that he can’t jail critics like Cambodia can. He’s livid that people can openly criticise him. “What’s important is that we don’t let freedom of speech be abused,” he announced. If that isn’t the rhetoric of an autocrat, what is?
But there was worse. Abela isn’t just thinking of how to bestow new powers on himself to stifle criticism. He’s riling up the base against “these people” who “pretend to be journalists but aren’t”. He called on society to “stand up to” the small clique of people abusing the decriminalisation of libel. How exactly does Abela intend the public to “stand up” to “these people”? What options does he have in mind to “address these matters”?
It is utterly reckless and deeply disturbing to hear the prime minister urging the public to “stand up to” those who “pretend to be journalists”. Almost seven years to the day since somebody decided to ‘stand up’ to a woman accused of “pretending to be a journalist”, the prime minister is still inciting his base, encouraging them to do something about “these people”.
Abela pledged to implement all the recommendations of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry when it was published over three years ago. He hasn’t implemented a single one of them. Instead, he’s publicly denigrated the three judges who sat on that inquiry and who drew up that report. He’s insulted them publicly, pouring out his contempt and accusing them of acting in bad faith.
Robert Abela pledged to implement all the recommendations of the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry. He hasn’t implemented one of them- Kevin Cassar
Abela is responsible for ensuring the safety of journalists and for bringing about the changes required to protect them. He was meant to spearhead the sweeping reforms that the Caruana Galizia inquiry envisaged. Instead, he is the one rousing the rabble, endangering the safety of journalists by questioning their legitimacy and creating fertile ground for more harassment, intimidation and persecution of his perceived critics.
Who are “these people”, Abela was asked. Resorting to his default innuendo, he replied “everybody knows who they are, they have banded together to push interests which are not inspired by moral rectitude”.
Abela does not miss any opportunity to intimidate critics. He diligently works to create a chilling effect intended to trigger self-censorship, restraint, moderation and, ultimately, silence. When Jason Azzopardi was fined €7,000 after being found guilty of libelling Carmelo Abela, the prime minister swiftly pounced: “we will continue to stand up to these types of campaigns intended to smear and ruin individuals who have a lot to offer society.”
That wasn’t Abela’s low point. He reached that nadir when he abused the tragic circumstances of Karl Gouder’s passing to incite the public “to stand up to them”.
“Without going into the details of the recent sad case,” Abela commented, “if we let this episode go by as if nothing happened then I would say we’ve learnt nothing… these personal senseless attacks by a small clique of people with a hidden malicious agenda who want to destroy good people, it is society that must stand up to them, not the Labour Party, or the prime minister”.
It’s that small clique again. Abela couldn’t restrain himself from exploiting even a tragic death. He couldn’t even keep silent for once, out of respect for the crushing sorrow Gouder’s family is enduring. He couldn’t pass, just this time. He had to incite the public to “stand up to” that “small clique of people”.
The only person who’s learnt nothing is Abela.
On the seventh year since the horrific assassination of Caruana Galizia, who Labour persecuted relentlessly, instead of generating a calm, unifying presence, Abela urges the public to take things into their own hands.
Instead of leading the nation by showing his respect at Daphne’s memorial, he incites his people against those “who pretend to be journalists”.
That’s a level of pure recklessness not even Cambodia has witnessed.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.