Once the identity of the alleged rapist was revealed to be American, the media stopped mentioning his name and started to downplay the alleged sexual assault.

In the last few days, the media was taken over by the alleged rape of an Italian woman. Immediately, the local media started drumming up this story to vindicate women’s rights and attack Malta’s presumed patriarchal society until it was discovered that the alleged rapist was not a Maltese man. Neither is he a migrant but an American.

Thus, just within nine hours after reporting this story of this alleged rape in the news, our local mainstream media stopped informing the public about the nationality of this man or his name. The local Women’s organizations stopped talking about this alleged rape story. Even the tone of the accusations changed. Before it was known that the alleged aggressor is an American, the local media presented the case as a fully-fledged rape. Now, once the nationality of the alleged aggressor was revealed, the press toned down the accusations and started talking about a sexual assault and giving other details about what had happened before this woman was allegedly assaulted.

I expected the American Embassy in Malta to invite the local Women’s Group for a glass of wine to congratulate them and express the Embassy’s support for denouncing and speaking out against another case of patriarchy. This time round, the alleged victim was an Italian woman. But as soon as the nationality of the alleged aggressor was known, everything changed. Women’s groups stopped speaking about this case on social media. Patriarchy is no longer in the equation, and none of our liberal journalists sought to seek the opinion of any one of the ring leaders of the women’s organizations. Not even the Foundation of Men against violence uttered a word. None of the liberals blamed this sexual assault on our “corrupt” Catholic culture and accused it of never teaching men to restrain themselves!

One wonders if the American Embassy – so active in supporting these women’s associations – has told the media to shut up as the alleged aggressor is someone brought up in liberal America!