Monday, October 30, 2017

Are they all wrong? Michael Briguglio

Times of Malta 30 October 2017

The Washington Post reported: “Daphne Caruana Galizia, journalist who assailed the powerful, dies in car bombing.”
“Malta’s most prominent investigative journalist has been killed in a car bombing, sending shockwaves across the European Union. She was well known for her work linked to the Panama Papers offshore banking revelations” (DW).
“Bomb kills journalist who exposed Malta’s ties to tax havens” (The Gazette).
“Her work targeted many powerful figures, including money-laundering banks, Mafia-linked gambling companies and politicians allegedly receiving covert payments” (The Guardian).
“Caruana Galizia was a fearless journalist and blogger who exposed numerous offshore dealings of prominent figures in Malta. She was also the mother of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) developer and data journalist Matthew Caruana Galizia” (Caribbean News Now).
“Caruana Galizia had been following up leads from information in the so-called Panama Papers, a large collection of documents from an offshore law firm in the Central American nation that were leaked in 2015. She was tracing alleged links between Maltese officials and offshore banks and companies used as tax havens” (Al Jazeera).
“The murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is a grim reminder of the risk journalists and whistleblowers face, not just in places like Russia and Egypt but in European democracies as well” (France 24).
“Brutal Killing of Journalist Exposes ‘Something Darker’ in Malta” (The New York Times).
“Death of a blogger casts shadow over murky Malta” (Reuters).
“The brutal murder of Maltese investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia… casts an unwelcome light on a tiny Mediterranean island nation that many in Europe thought of as a holiday destination – if they thought of it at all. Now the EU’s smallest country, with a population of less than 450,000, will also be known as the place where a journalist gets killed by a car bomb in broad daylight, and a place where many point the finger of blame for this most unsubtle of crimes squarely at the government” (Politico).
“Top European Union officials have denounced Caruana Galizia’s slaying as an attack on journalistic freedom and insisted that rule of law prevail in the tiny member nation. Malta is widely considered a tax haven and a tempting venue for those looking to launder or hide ill-gotten gains” (Time).
“The island nation has a reputation as a tax haven in the European Union and has attracted companies and money from outside Europe” (US News).
“Malta, the EU’s smallest member, is fast becoming one of its most troubled. The Valletta courthouse is surrounded by signs of breakneck economic growth: the swanky facades of luxury boutiques and hotels; building sites bustling with immigrant construction workers, unencumbered by safety harnesses or helmets. For the past three years, under Joseph Muscat’s Maltese Labour Party (PL) government, GDP has soared at an annual average rate of almost seven per cent, against a background of unremitting corruption allegations” (The Economist).
“There are two things worth saying about Caruana Galizia’s brutal killing. One is that she’s a symbol who should make us all think of countries where reporters and editors die regularly, simply because they’re doing their job: say Mexico, 11 killed already this year.
“But Caruana Galizia has a greater demand for our attention. Like Guerin, slain in Dublin. Like Politkovskaya, murdered in Russia’s days of relative freedom, 11 years ago. Malta is part of our world, our European world and our colonial heritage” (Peter Preston, The Guardian).
“The slain journalist had no shortage of enemies, having penned stories critical of many prominent local politicians and businessmen, both local and foreign, and allegedly corrupt dealings… Whatever the motivations of the killers, the media, the justice system and the government all find themselves in the spotlight once more” (Euronews).
“Caruana Galizia’s killing has sent shock waves around the world, with the United States the latest country to condemn it” (The Daily Mail).
The above selection of quotes was taken from newspapers and press agencies around the world. At the same time, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has embarked on his passport-selling tour and has tried to convince the international press that people are ‘happy’, that Malta is ‘serene’, and that Daphne’s son Matthew’s response to the murder of his mother was ‘emotional’.
Further comments are not needed.