That night, my situation was very precarious. I didn't have a single euro left! I didn't have a job. My best friend had just gone on holiday: I couldn't rely on him. I only had a few tuna cans in my kitchen drawer.
I had lived my full week of work on a tiny-tiny budget, expecting to get by with my wages, at the end of the week. And now I wasn't going to get paid...
What kind of man doesn't pay his due – purposefully, having the money to do it – to a poor guy who doesn't even have money to buy food?! A disgusting man. .
I was in a situation of destitution, and I decided to show it publicly, to embarass my former boss, and make him lose some customers. I took out my trousers. I took out my shirt (which belonged to the shop, anyway). I had only my underwear on, hiding my willie. In that “uniform”, I sat down in front of his shop. I had brought some cardboard from a supermarket. With a black, thick pen, I wrote something on it, of this kind (can't remember the exact words):
“BOYCOTT THIS SHOP. THE OWNER IS A THIEF. HE DOESN'T PAY HIS EMPLOYEES”.
Then, sitting in the street, in front of the shop, I would shout loud: “Boycott Ivan, he is a thief”. I did this, for approximately half an hour. Then, Ívan's friends arrived. Feeling (and looking!) embarrassed by my protest, and constating that I was making him lose customers, he had called the cops.
A pair of them arrived. One of them immediately started yelling at me: “What is this? Stop this! Go away!”. He didn't make the slightest effort to listen to me, and then Ivan, as an impartial and fair man. He just gave a kick in my protest-cardboard. He didn't try to have a word with both of us, so as to try to settle things peacefully. Instead, he immediately took side for a thief. He immediately took sides for one of his own (a maltese vs a foreigner). He took sides for the owner, versus the dispossessed. He decided to suppress “anormality”, instead of doing justice.
As I sat on the ground, he shouted at me “Do you want to go to jail?! Do you want to go to jail?!”. I told him I was not afraid to go to jail, and I presented him my hands, as if saying “come on, put the handcuffs”. That further enraged him. Unable to tolerate this slight challenge to his authority, he dragged me to the car. He didn't even bother to put me the cuffs. A dozen of witnesses were in the street. I shouted to them: “This is maltese justice! The cops are with the thieves”.
They took my stuff: short trousers, a thick pencil – of which I will talk later on, my mobile, and that is pretty much. I told them I wanted my cardboard (useful for further protests!), plus two bottles of water ( 1 ½ litres) that I had brought with me, being prepared to spend the night over there. But they didn't take care of my request, and I lost these three items.
For the record, I want to denounce publicly the cop who arrested me. I don't know his name, because he didn't tell me, despite repeated requests over the course of the many hours I spent in jail. But I know his number. He is COP 455, from Sliema police station. A small, white haired man, in his 60s. I am asking to the competent authorities to fire him from the police force. It is too dangerous to have men like COP 455, who completely lacks any sense of justice, and who has such a high opinion of his power, in any position of coercive authority. This man reacts like a dog: when it sees something strange, a cat/a protester for example, it barks and it bites.
Moreover, and since I was kidnapped and sequestered for almost a complete day because of this abusive man, I am asking for the laws and even the constitution to be changed, so that it becomes legal to kidnapp him and sequester him for a period of 2 or 3 days at least, as punishment for the injustice and stress he made me suffer. He can stay in my room, and doesn't need to worry, I will give him fresh bedsheets. That is, for justice to be done, he has to suffer the same kind of indignity he does to others. I perfectly know that won't happen (you do not change the “System” with just a few blog posts...). But I am asking this as a matter of principle.
COP 455, I am talking to you directly, now:
I DO NOT RECOGNIZE YOUR AUTHORITY.
I DO NOT RESPECT YOU.
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