Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1281593
3 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 AUGUST 2020 Mikiel Galea Letters & Clarifications Letters on abortion I refer to the commentary published by Liza Caruana Finkel regarding how COVID-19 has created a double barrier for women in Malta to access abortion. If every article on abortion attracts two piles of letters – one appreciating the insights, and the other from readers who insist that women are incapable of making the right reproductive choices for themselves, rejecting them – please add this letter to the former pile. Prof. Isabel Stabile FRCOG., Ph.D. Lampuki fishers The Department of Fisheries and Aq- uaculture refers to the article published on your online portal under the head- ing 'Maltese armed forces to monitor lampuki fishing grounds for Tunisian raiders'. The monitoring operation to be car- ried out are in line and in accordance with the GFCM recommendation num- ber 32. This recommendation obliges states to ensure that fishing activities including those carried out in interna- tional waters are properly monitored. The monitoring activity shall cover all fishing activity being carried out by fishing vessels irrespective of the origin of their flag state. Furthermore, the Director Fisheries (DFA) categorically denies stating the following statement: "Maltese fishers on the high seas setting sail for this year's lampuki season will be accom- panied by an Armed Forces of Malta patrol boat, fisheries director Dr Alicia Said announced". Please note that the monitoring that shall be carried out shall not be done in the name or in representation of the European Fish- eries Control Agency as your article erroneously reports. However, any contraventions to regulations that may be observed shall be duly reported to the competent authorities. Finally please further note that the action plan being enacted belongs to and is being executed by the Mal- tese Fisheries Department with the assistance of competent surveillance authorities and not an initiative of the Maltese Armed Forces as the article in question seems to imply. Martina Grech Department of Fisheries Editorial Note: This statement completely contradicts the comments recorded on film by the secretary of the fisheries cooperative and the minister for rural affairs. Malt- aToday also has to inform readers that there were two attempts from ministry representatives to have the initial re- port pared down for its overt references to the presence of an AFM patrol boat that will be tasked to support Gozitan fishers due to poaching from Tunisian fishers. The newspaper stands by what it reported. Cat complaints I do agree with the complaint pub- lished in your newspaper last week about the ad hoc 'cat villages' that tend to spring in various corners of the is- land. Sliema's local council should start taking an interest in the way an entire section of the Independence Garden has been taken over by one of these curated cat villages. The sight of a va- grant who has made this area home, on the pretext that he tends to the cats that live there, preys on the affection that cats inspire in people. It is clearly and urban space that has been allowed to be 'privatised' by those who elect themselves as curators of feral ani- mals. As your correspondent so rightly pointed out, "This is a matter of public spaces which are allowed to be turned into rogue, private areas, on account of unimpeachable causes such as the care of cats." Local councils beware: if they cannot make space for people in need who tend to use public parks to lay their head when they do not have a room to call home, their defence of these animal spaces is truly an act of hypocrisy. John Muscat St Julian's