The Times of Malta’s supplement ‘Justice beckons’ (October 16) was an indictment of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his Labour government. I was particularly struck by Simon Busuttil’s write-up on the ‘Rotten state of our democracy’.

The Labour government, Busuttil wrote: “Eggs on online hate groups to vilify Daphne [Caruana Galizia]. It allows taxpayer-paid cronies to insult her with total impunity. It repeatedly removes flowers and candles laid at a symbolic memorial for truth and justice. And it even wrapped the entire Great Siege monument to stamp out protests altogether... Refusing to accept this state of affairs does not make us traitors. It makes us patriots.”

At a religious service for Daphne, Fr David Cilia, the Archbishop’s delegate, noted how “innocuous candles and flowers became a sign of irritation to those who did not want to know who murdered the journalist” (October 17).

At a vigil in Valletta, Carles Torner, executive director of PEN International, declared: “Nowhere in the world – not even in the Russia of [Vladimir] Putin – would anyone dare to destroy a memorial for a slain journalist. So, we tell the government of Malta: do not dare destroy the memorial we are building tonight.”

Next, he could have addressed those who ordered the assassination of Daphne: “Alas for the man who raises his hand against another... Nowhere! Not in the sky, nor in the midst of the sea, nor deep in the mountains, can you hide from your own mischief. Not in the sky, nor in the midst of the ocean, nor deep in the mountains, nowhere can you hide from your own death” (Dhammapada, The sayings of the Buddha).