The Labour Party expressed disappointment at the way the government will be marking Freedom Day in an activity which, the party says, will last less than half an hour.
Labour general secretary Jason Micallef said the government was not only disinterested in the national feast but also wanted to vilify it.
"The (government's) programme, called 'celebrations' by the National Festivities Committee, is an insult to all the Maltese and Gozitan people and should make Minister Dolores Cristina, responsible for the Ministry for Education and Culture, blush," the party said.
Meanwhile, Sandro Craus, from the Labour Party's councillors' section, said it was a shame that councils having a majority of Nationalist Party members refused to mark Freedom Day even by simply laying flowers on behalf of their community at the Freedom Day monument.