Crowd Counter Estimates 3,000-3,500 People Turned Up To Valletta Anti-Corruption Protest
Between 3,000 and 3,500 people turned up to an anti-corruption protest in Valletta last night, according to estimates from a crowd counting app.
The ‘CrowdSize’ app allows you to estimate crowd sizes by outlining the perimeter of an area in which a crowd gathers and then uses light, medium or dense factors depending on how tightly packed the crowd is.
The app was used to calculate the crowd, starting from Great Siege Square, where the stage was set up, and ending at the Energy Complex shopping mall, where the crowds could be seen petering out.
Applying a medium-to-high density gave an estimation of between 3,000 and 3,500 people which, while sizeable, is a far more modest figure than the unofficial figure of 6,000 which was reported by Newsbook.
Pressure group Repubblika, who organised the protest, didn’t give an official crowd figure when contacted by Lovin Malta.
“We’re very happy with the turnout. We are not experts at crowd counts but we think the voice of several thousands has been heard loud and clear in Castille,” a Repubblika spokesperson said. “Today the Prime Minister should fire Keith Schembri. The entire nation – not just the thousands who joined us yesterday – will think that’s the good thing to do. Then we’ll come out again to tell the Prime Minister to follow his assistant through the door. Or the window.”
Repubblika had originally intended to organise a vigil to mark 25 months since the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. However, it converted the activity into a protest on Tuesday after the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri dropped a libel suit he had instigated against former PN leader Simon Busuttil so as to avoid cross-examination.
The Nationalist Party endorsed and pushed the protest, with Opposition leader Adrian Delia and several high-ranking party officials turning up and the PN media urging people to turn up on the night.
The protest was addressed by blogger-activist Manuel Delia, student Petra Caruana, former PN president Mark Anthony Sammut, theatre studies professor Vicki Ann Cremona and Jacques René Zammit, a lawyer who works at the European Court of Justice.
What did you make of last night’s protest?
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