A protest against irregular immigration scheduled for tomorrow was cancelled by the organiser, a day after the police gave the green light.
The demonstration was being organised by a Facebook group called Malta Tagħna (Malta Is Ours), a play on Labour’s electoral slogan Malta Tagħna Lkoll (Malta For All).
However, the anonymous individual who set up the group last night called off the protest because of what he claimed was an assumption by many that he was “a PN follower with malicious intention to harm and obstruct the PL and the Prime Minister”.
Insisting this was a false assumption, the administrator said Opposition leader Simon Busuttil was in favour of turning Malta into Haiti and that he should pay the price with a 10-year stint in Opposition.
Support for the cause seemed to have dwindled after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had aired his disapproval of the planned demonstration.
The organiser applied to assemble in Valletta and hold a demonstration “in favour of the Maltese Government in the fight against illegal immigration”.
However, Dr Muscat made it clear he did not approve of such demonstrations and warned Labour officials and MPs not to take part. Far-right organisations like Viva Malta and Imperium Europa had also decided not to participate.
“We consider the timing as inappropriate. We also expected a press conference by the organisers, that they might show their face,” they said in a joint statement.
The Facebook group had almost 5,000 members, yet, in another reason for the cancellation, the promoter said he expected a “huge number” of “traitors” to be present in Valletta to “provoke”.
The organiser hit out at what he described as “the wannabe patriots of Malta” for just moaning about the problem instead of taking solid action.
“I am an ordinary citizen and alone I applied for all the necessary police permits to give ordinary people a chance to unite and, together, peacefully express our concern,” he said, adding he had planned to reveal his identity on the day of the demonstration.
A similar protest meant to take place last month did not materialise either after the police said no permits had been sought.
The police yesterday confirmed to Times of Malta that the Police Commissioner had approved the event under the terms of the Meetings Ordinance.
Anti-immigration sentiment has grown since Dr Muscat threatened to fly a group of immigrants back to Libya without processing their asylum requests last month, which saw a record number of migrant arrivals.
Advanced plans to send the migrants via Air Malta flights were foiled at the last minute by the European Court of Human Rights, which issued an “interim measure” to block their repatriation.