Are we truly living in a free society, when low-lifes feel so empowered by the state's ineffectual justice system that they have no compulsion of holding back from attacking persons whose wrong was simply that of expressing themselves?

That is the question that comes to mind after reading about a spate of recent attacks.

For example just yesterday Paul Buttigieg, the mayor of Qala, Gozo, was physically attacked by a truck driver in the employ of a "well-known Gozitan developer" simply for taking a stand against the commercial development of the Ħondoq ir-Rummien bay.

In the meantime, a court case is ongoing against a man from Qormi for verbally abusing well known blogger Manuel Delia, in a road rage incident in Għajnsielem last February, in broad daylight, and in the presence of the blogger's family, and that subsequently the same man made additional effort to to contact him by phone so as to threaten and abuse the blogger further.

Also just a week ago, well known Labourite Ray Azzopardi's residence was vandalised with red spray-paint.

And of course, all this against the backdrop of DCG's murder in October 2017, for which millionaire (perhaps even billionaire) Yorgen Fenech was indicted in November 2019, but more than two years later his case remains exasperatingly locked in pre-trail phase whilst Malta's ineffectual justice system hopelessly lumbers on as ineffectually as is procedurally possible.