Columnist brought in for questioning for breaching electoral silence

Police yesterday brought publicist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Malta Independent columnist, in for questioning at the Mosta police station on the strength of a duty magistrate's order over complaints that she had breached electoral silence.

With the social media networks still buzzing, albeit at a lower level, with political talk on Friday's eve of Malta's election day, Caruana Galizia's personal blog on Friday was still busy with posts that she said "mocked" Opposition leader Joseph Muscat.

New complaints to the police from the Nationalist Party followed earlier today, reporting several Labour Party representatives or candidates who breached the General Elections Act's provisions on electoral silence, by posting messages on Twitter and Facebook.

Caruana Galizia, 48, reportedly refused to entertain a request from the Commissioner of Police on Friday evening to come in for questioning at the Mosta police station.

In her blog, she claimed that at 9:30pm two police inspectors arrived at her home in Bidnija with a warrant for her arrest, but a stand-off ensued when she refused them access to her house. "I brought out the mastiff so that he could hurl himself against [the gate] and bit the bars, just in case they had any thoughts of coming over the wall," she wrote.

Caruana Galizia also demanded that she gave a statement in her home, which police refused. She then "rang the press": Bondiplus presenter Lou Bondì arrived on the scene, where he was filmed questioning police inspectors as to why they were arresting the columnist.

Police allowed her to be driven down to the police station by her husband, lawyer Peter Caruana Galizia, where she then questioned and released at 1:30am.

"I challenged the basis for their arrest, explained that the law was anti-constitutional, and asked them why - when practically the whole of Malta was discussing politics on the internet, I had been selected for arrest," she wrote.

She also accused "the police force in general" of having become "terribly weakened by the rise of strong Labour elements".

While the internet is no safe harbour for circumventing laws on civil or criminal defamation, the General Elections Act also prohibits any form of broadcasting medium from breaching the day of reflection.

But bloggers on Facebook yesterday questioned why freedom of expression had to be curtailed on the eve of, and the day of voting: a matter which for the time remains a moot question.

Caruana Galizia, loved and hated in equal measure by fans and critics, pens regular invectives against the Labour Party as well as members of the media, whether they are styled as opposition or independent figures.