I will not be bullied into silence, columnist says

Columnist Kristina Chetcuti said on Saturday she would “not be bullied into silence”, after coming under severe fire for her opinion piece in last week’s edition of The Sunday Times of Malta.
In the opinion piece, entitled ‘On being a martyr’, the former reporter and partner of former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said that people should leave their children out of politics.
She wrote that schoolground bullying was “bound to happen” and parents should not “wail ‘Mhux fer’ ” if their children were not invited to birthday parties.
Ms Chetcuti was indirectly referring to comments made by the wife of the Prime Minister, Michelle Muscat. Speaking on Xtra, Ms Muscat said her children’s school had not protected them from bullying, pointing out that there were school parties from which her children had been excluded.
Ms Chetcuti’s comments drew the ire of members of the Labour government, including several MPs, with many interpreting her opinion piece as being tolerant of school bullying. The newspaper L-Orrizont even ran front-page stories in the same vein.

In an article published on Sunday, the Parliamentary Secretary for Reforms, Citizenship and Simplification of Administrative...