Pro-Life Activist Simon Debono Denies Intimidating Pro-Choice Youths, Says Post Only Up For 7 Minutes
Pro-life activist Simon Debono has dismissed suggestions that he uploaded the names of pro-choice students on a Facebook group he administers in an attempt to intimidate them ahead of a debate in Parliament.
Debono told Lovin Malta that he had published the names of both pro-choice and pro-life participants ahead of the debate because he wanted the pro-lifers to be coached in advance.
However, he said he deleted the post after around seven minutes after realising that there were already more numbers on the pro-life side than the pro-choice one, which meant they were certain to win the symbolic debate.
“The list of speakers was already out and they were all going to speak in Parliament anyway,” he said. “Why should the names be secret? If you believe in something, why should you hide it?”
The National Youth Parliament is an annual event organised by the National Youth Council (KNŻ) which sees youths debate controversial topics in Parliament in the presence of MPs.
This year’s topic was abortion, with KNŻ president Yacopo Baldacchino stating the topic was chosen because it is “very popular” among youths.
“KNŻ don’t have a particular agenda or opinion either way but abortion is a very popular topic among youths and yet there’s no platform where it can be discussed,” Baldacchino told Lovin Malta.
He said the KNŻ put out application forms, where youths had to declare whether they were strongly or partially pro-life or pro-choice in advance.
KNŻ then split the applicants into two groups, whose numbers they controlled to ensure a balanced debate.
“Our intention wasn’t to see which side would win the debate but to have a balanced debate with substance in Parliament.”
However, several members of the pro-choice camp dropped out prior to the debate, which KNŻ attributed to their names being published on Debono’s Facebook group.
In fact, while yesterday’s debate was hailed for its maturity, the disparity in numbers between the pro-life and pro-choice youths was evident.
KNŻ president Yacopo Baldacchino (Photo: KNŻ)
Although Baldacchino said he isn’t aware that any of the applicants received direct threats, he warned that many of them didn’t feel “safe” anymore afterwards.
“The gist of the post was very intimidating and unfortunately many people dropped out.”
“Even career-wise, someone told me that they are a medical student and their lecturers are conservative. They applied for the event expecting it to be a mature discussion without any intimidation tactics and then this happened.”
However, Debono has a different version of events, claiming the pro-choice youths who dropped out were actually not pro-choice at all but were cajoled into jumping across that side of the fence due to political pressure by certain PL activists.
“PL youths were working internally to secure a pro-choice majority in the vote but they failed despite their power of incumbency,” he said. “The majority of PL voters are conservative but a small minority of activists has infiltrated both parties and the Church, placed themselves in positions of influence, and are trying to project the idea that there’s some kind of pro-choice majority.”
“This is democracy at play. If the pro-choice had a majority then so be it, but I’m trying to convince people against abortion. This is all a mise-en-scene.”
Baldacchino denies that there was any kind of political infiltration, stating that KNŻ is completely non-partisan.
Debono pledged to take action if he finds out that any of his group members had threatened youths on the pro-choice list.
“If so many people were threatened, why don’t they come out and say so? We don’t threaten people, we work to convince them to stand against abortion. If we discover that any threats were made, those who made those threats will fear me more than they fear God.”
“However, if the threat is a perceived one because our group is so large then I can’t do anything about it because it’s a perception.”
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