[WATCH] SHout challenge hunters to debates: ‘Stop hiding behind fancy facades’

SHout challenge hunters to debates • Video by Ray Attard

Instead of divulging lies and falsities and hiding behind fancy facades, the hunters should be responding to requests for participation and taking part in debates, Spring Hunting Out (SHout) campaigners said today.

SHout said that while the YES camp resorted to scaremongering, the NO camp had facts and arguments.

“We urge all clubs to seek information from their legal representatives and ask them whether their hobby, sporting activity or pastime is in any real danger as the hunters claim.”

Addressing a press conference outside the law courts, NO camp spokesman Saviour Balzan said the 11 April referendum was about making Malta a better country where families could peacefully enjoy the one thing that comes for free: countryside.

“It is shameful that the YES camp keeps divulging lies: it is not true that other EU member states practice spring hunting; it is not true that minorities are under threat,” he said.

Balzan pointed out that during the launch of the YES campaign, the hunters’ chiefs “did not have the decency to show their faces”, instead choosing to send their legal representative to speak on their behalf.

“We are here because we are Maltese first and foremost … this has nothing to do with Europe, because it is us the Maltese fighting for what is ours,” he said.

The SHout campaigners said they opted to hold their press conference outside the law courts to serve as a reminder to the hundreds of hunters that were arraigned in court, apprehended for shooting down protected birds of prey.

They said, that the democracy for hunters had meant trying to stop a referendum from taking place while journalists had been attacked during a hunting protest.

“In an attempt to influence the people’s votes, they have resorted to marketing and drama. People however can see past the frills,” Balzan said, reiterating his call for real debates on TVM, NET and ONE stations.

“We are not politicians chasing votes but Maltese citizens with an opportunity to do what the political parties have repeatedly failed to do, succumbing to the hunters’ threats. If the politicians are afraid of the hunters, we are not.”