UPDATED: Citizen action seven months since Daphne’s assassination

Updated with information that the banners put up overnight were taken down by the authorities by 9am.

Seventeen women clad in black stood on the steps of Castille, the office of Malta’s Prime Minister, holding cards reading “Who Owns 17 Black?” to mark seven months since the assassination of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The action, carried out by #Occupyjustice activists, referred to the client company which was feeding €126,000 every month into the secret Panama companies of Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Keith Schembri.

“We came to Castille with our question, because it is now clear to all, except maybe the Prime Minister himself, that the web of corruption is based here in his very office. And now more than ever he must go and take his two sidekicks with him,” #OccupyJustice said.

The group said that when a fortnight ago the German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung, showed the 17 Black connection to Mizzi and Schembri, instead of firing them, the Prime Minister organised a mass meeting to plug his adulation.

Meanwhile, the banners that have come to be expected each month on the day marking the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia again appeared on Malta’s roads overnight.

This time the banner depicted the three monkeys that embody the principle of ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ which is used to refer to those who deal with impropriety by turning a blind eye.

All the banners placed overnight were swiftly taken down by the authorities by 9am this morning, something which has become a regular occurrence when banners calling for justice for Caruana Galizia are erected. In contrast, banners placed in the same way to promote the message of the Labour Party’s youth arm do not receive the same treatment.

Seven months since the assassination of Caruana Galizia the country is nowhere close to knowing the mastermind who ordered her killing. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who started off saying he would ‘leave no stone unturned,’ has permitted government officials and supporters to reignite the hateful language used against her before her assassination.

An investigation by The Shift News on Labour Party hate groups with some 60,000 members found countless examples of people celebrating the death of Caruana Galizia and references to her as a witch. Aggression and threats targeting her family were also regularly posted.

A vigil will be held at her memorial on Wednesday at 7.30pm where a video produced by Cologne-based artist Joanna Vortmann will be shown. The video is based on Caruana Galizia’s writings.