Malta is moving towards an ideology of mob rule, social activist Michael Briguglio has warned, after he was insulted by a passer-by in the presence of a warden in Sliema.

The former Alternattiva Demokratika chairman is no stranger to being insulted. But he was shocked last Wednesday while walking on the Sliema promenade when a well-built man in his 60s passed near him and shouted bżieq (spit) at him.

"What shocked me was the sense of entitlement that the man in the headphones expressed. He felt perfectly safe to insult and threaten me in a public space, in the presence of a warden," Dr Briguglio said in a Times of Malta opinion piece.

"Some others who are resorting to violent language in the social media seem to be quite comfortable doing it... verbal abuse of political adversaries is becoming increasingly common," he said. 

Dr Briguglio is now one of the leaders of the Civil Society Network and has steered protests in the wake of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. 

He said that after the initial insult, he walked towards the man who had insulted him and and asked him to repeat what he had just said. A warden was close by, as was another man.

"The man in the headphones, in an aggressive tone, said he hadn’t spoken to me but then called me demel (dung) and resorted to threats, saying that even though he is older than me, he would beat me up. The warden seemed to be as shocked as I was and winked to me as if to calm me down and let things be. The other man nearby acted similarly.

"I was shocked and walked home in shivers. This may sound strange, as I have a thick skin. When my dad questioned Dom Mintoff's excesses in the late 1970s, only to be expelled by Labour, our family had police protection. I don’t remember this as I was born in 1975. But I do remember what went on in the 1980s. I remember my dad coming home reporting mob rule and violence.

"I do remember Labourite mobs insulting my dad during his Partit Demokratiku public meetings.

"When I was a kid I too experienced my fair share of politically-incited violence. I remember a female school beadle insulting me because of my dad. Once I was beaten up by someone my age because I did not fit in politically.

This is not about freedom of speech ...this is about intimidation.

"Which takes me back to the incident on the Sliema promenade. I never saw this man in the headphones before last Wednesday, and if I were cool and coldly rational I would have taken a photo of him or asked the warden to phone the police. But I was shocked.

"Shocked not by the insults. I receive a lot of positive and negative comments about my activism. So do other activists and politicians.

"What shocked me was the sense of entitlement that the man in the headphones expressed. He felt perfectly safe to insult and threaten me in a public space, in the presence of a warden.

"Some others who are resorting to violent language in the social media seem to be quite comfortable doing it.

"Verbal abuse of political adversaries is becoming increasingly common.

"This is not about freedom of speech, as suggested by an ex-police commissioner in court in a case involving threats towards MEP Roberta Metsola. This is about intimidation.

"Malta is moving towards an ideology of mob rule, where some feel entitled to intimidate and attack others because of their beliefs. Daphne Caruana Galizia paid the ultimate price for her journalism.

We better act fast before the ideology of mob rule becomes the new normal and things get worse."

In a reaction, Cyrus Engerer, the prime minister’s representative to the EU, commented on Facebook that what had happened to Dr Briguglio was no surprise to him and many others. Dr Briguglio’s mistake was to attribute what had happened to a Labourite.

Unfortunately, the incident reflected a Maltese trait evident in politics, football and village feasts, where insults were hurled between clubs and villages.

He said he himself had been insulted in the streets since 2011, ever since he resigned from the PN. In the first incident,  a man got out of a car and assaulted him as he walked to his home in Sliema. He was also threatened on facebook, on radio and elsewhere.

This was a reality many had experienced but did not make a fuss about as they went about their work, also drawing the respect of those who insulted them, to the extent that the person who insulted him the first time had since voted Labour.