Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the smear campaign launched by the Maltese government in response to the revelations of the “Daphne Project,” a consortium of 18 media organisations which is investigating the murder and the stories that Daphne Caruana Galizia was reporting on at the time of her death.
RSF said that the campaign is targeting both the Daphne Project and Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family.
“We deplore the fact that the government’s response to investigative reporting and to legitimate requests by the family of the murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been to launch calls for a demonstration.” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
He added that government should instead concentrate on facilitating the ongoing judicial investigation and “provide all the resources that are needed to shed light on this shocking murder. The Maltese judicial system must also act on the information that has been revealed by the journalistic investigations.”
The Daphne Project revelations by the Forbidden Stories consortium of investigative reporters – a project launched with RSF’s support – have cause a stir in Malta, and on Sunday Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called on his supporters to counter the Daphne Project revelations by attending a mass rally on 1 May.
“The best reply we can give is on May 1, when the people will unite as one in Valletta to convey our message,” he said.
RSF said the Labour Party has reacted to the revelations, by waging an aggressive campaign in the media and on social networks for the biggest possible turnout for demonstrations on 1 May against both the Daphne Project and what it calls the “Caruana family’s provocation.”
In RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index published this week, Malta ranked 65th out of 180 countries, 18 places lower than in the 2017 Index.