Today week, we are holding the 60th monthly vigil since Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed. I’d like to say it has been quite a journey. In some respects, we have come far. In some others, we’re still where we started.
One man is serving a disturbingly short sentence after admitting he killed Caruana Galizia. In place of punishment, he has been rewarded for agreeing to testify against others.
Two other men are being tried, having waited most of the past 60 months to face a jury and having done much to avoid this appointment with their hopefully bleak destiny. Four more men are in prison, waiting for their turn to face a jury. And one other man has negotiated for himself a deal to stay out of prison in exchange for giving evidence on the facts.
Is there anyone in this country, whatever they might have felt about Caruana Galizia, that thinks this is a reasonable pace for the serving of justice?
As you might guess, I’m not her killers’ biggest fan but, as I argue for their punishment, I also argue for their right to be served timely justice, to be told their fate in reasonable time.
Of course, I’m not an idiot. I know that, in this specific case, the accused are in no hurry to hear a verdict. Even as everyone gives them the courtesy of presuming their innocence, at least one of them boasted on a radio interview that his only regret was not asking for more money for the head of his quarry.
The guilty are less keen than the innocent for the swift arrival of their day in court.
As you might guess, I’m a supporter of the victims of this crime and hope they can find some relative peace after what happened to their wife, mother, sister and daughter. They have waited too long and they have too long still to wait.
The glacial crawl of justice in the murder case, where it ever to arrive at a destination, does not begin to address the ‘why’ Daphne was killed, an injustice that needs to be addressed if this country is to ever heal.
We have papered over a gashing wound and we’re going about our business ignoring the infection.
The man who led a government found responsible by an inquiry for allowing Daphne to be killed walks about town expecting and often getting the deference of some respected, retired grandee of politics. Joseph Muscat has diversified his activities, flaunting his wife’s handbags on an Instagram account that would embarrass the Kardashians. While Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Chris Cardona and others live out their reinvented existences like nothing ever happened.
The government is sitting on the closed book of a debate on what needs to change to make sure journalists are safe to do their job in this country.
We let that happen.
We let this country reiterate the injustice it handed Daphne when it killed her, by continuing the excuse and cover-up of the crimes she was killed for exposing.
We let this country perpetuate the inherent risk of denouncing those crimes.
We have refused to be swept away, blown off by the blast from the bomb that killed Daphne- Manuel Delia
Some of us have refused and continue to refuse this apparently inevitable national amnesia. You can accuse people like me of many things. It would be justified to call me repetitive, a stuck needle, a broken record, a hopeless lunatic raising my fists at time as if I could change it, assuming, wrongly, that I can meddle with the forces of nature and get away with it.
I’m still writing arguments that I was writing 60 months ago, still shaking from the shock of the killing of someone I admired through my computer screen.
Most victories my friends have claimed proved pyrrhic; most celebrations hollow.
Nearly every change to the laws we forced on the government with protest, lobbying and the coordination of international pressure proved unusable. Nearly every twist of our many cases in courts sobered by the stubborn resistance of politicians and bureaucrats unwilling or unable to do the right thing.
Our only real success was being there.
We have been a shrill, faint, shaky voice raised above the din of unanimity of support to the government. We have been a stubbornly chirpy cricket spoiling the tune of the hegemonic band march of ‘tagħna lkoll’ and ‘l-aqwa żmien’. We have refused to be swept away, blown off by the blast from the bomb that killed Daphne.
This Wednesday, we are showing a documentary on Daphne’s investigations and how those stories turned out after she was killed for writing them. On Saturday evening, world-renowned journalist Carole Cadwalladr will speak about journalism in eroding democracies, where ever-more autocratic governments clip the wings of free speech to mobilise blinded popular support. Both events are being held at the university’s Valletta campus. Register on repubblika.events@gmail.com to attend.
On Sunday, October 16, after a day of events of remembrance, join us outside parliament at 6.30pm. We’ll march together with Daphne’s family, Giovanni Falcone’s sister, Maria, the European Parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, representatives from global free-speech organisations and other women and men who refuse to be blown away, to shut up, to allow the swagger of impunity to march over their sense of citizenship and their desire for right to prevail over wrong.
“There is something else I should say before I go: when people taunt you or criticise you for being ‘negative’ or for failing to go with their flow, for not adopting an attitude of benign tolerance to their excesses, bear in mind always that they, and not you, are the ones who are in the wrong” – Daphne Caruana Galizia.