Why should we celebrate Freedom Day when we are losing our personal freedom due to Covid19 measures?
Blog post by Marica Micallef
The decision of the Maltese authorities to give permission to the police to enter our homes with a warrant seems to be inspired by the Biden administration. In America, the Biden administration is urging the supreme court to let policemen enter homes without a warrant. The reason given was to seize warrantless guns.[1] In Malta, the Maltese health authorities do not seem to need to consult our courts. They decided to become the court themselves and gave the local police the authority to enter and inspect homes without a warrant.
Without questioning the merit of Biden’s argument, doesn’t it sound ironical that all this is happening at the same time around the world? It all feels like a script that all governments are following. I am sure that Biden is not doing this to seize guns – and I am not going to discuss the legal and ethical aspects of whether citizens should hold guns and weapons in their homes – but it seems like all countries will become a police state.
It is ironic that these measures are being taken by a government that treasures Freedom Day. Today, Wednesday 31st March, the U.S. Supreme court will hear the argument whereby attorneys general from nine states are urging the High Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation, and if this goes through, there would be a major fourth amendment case.
In Malta, the local health authorities can decide without going to court. Our system is different. But why is there no lawyer, Labour or Nationalist, who challenges this order in court? Where is the pride of Freedom Day that we are celebrating today? How can a superintendent issue such a warrant when the same superintendent has not yet decreed a state of emergency? Is such a warrant ultra vires?
Why is our legal class allowing the Maltese authorities to trample on our freedom just like that without challenging these decisions in court? Do we have to give up our freedom so then we get it back? Are people realising how illogical all this is?
It definitely transpires that the Covid19 measures are excuses to help democratic countries to mutate their system into a totalitarian dictatorship. I can cite a number of examples to make my point. People who are exempt from wearing the mask, still have to show the reason as to why they can do so. This is in breach of Article 10 of the Fundamental Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to respect for privacy in relation to information on his or her health”.
In the Kill the Bill demonstration held in Manchester, not only were some protestors arrested, which violates Article 20 which states that “everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association”, but there was a particular incident where a woman’s underwear was exposed during the arrest, showing her naked. Even Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, has called for “full explanation” from the police. [1]
This is truly running out of hand and getting more serious. Those against these measures have warned from the beginning but people accepted the masks; they accepted the lockdowns; they accepted the distance; they accepted all measures. Those against these measures have warned that once the people accept one measure, other measures will follow.
This is what happens with blind obedience. This is what happens when people do not read, do not educate themselves with what is going on around them; do not engage in critical thinking, and do not undo all things taught and told. Besides, we were neither taught the law in school nor were we taught how to philosophise and question matters. Ernest Holmes once said: “Practically the whole human race is hypnotized because it thinks what somebody else told it to think”. Wake up Malta!
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9418195/Police-launch-urgent-review-exposing-womans-underwear-Manchester-Kill-Bill-protest.html
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2021/03/23/biden-administration-urges-supreme-court-to-let-cops-enter-homes-and-seize-guns-without-a-warrant/?sh=5aafb3d2829f