The Federation for Hunting and Conservation – Malta (FKNK), said in a statement today that “when, last Friday, representatives of the coalition against spring hunting presented a petition to the Electoral Commission to call a referendum to abolish spring hunting, they sported a t-shirt with the wording “Stop Spring Hunting.”

FKNK added, “many still recall some other anti-hunting ‘personalities’ who, up to quite recently, still sported t-shirts with the wording “Stop Illegal Spring Hunting.”

“This again verifies that these individuals may be abusing of a democratic procedure to abolish a legal interest of a minority group for their personal gains.” FKNK pointed out, “nothing stops them from extending such abuse against the legal interests of other minority groups. Furthermore, these abolitionists want to deprive Malta from its right as an EU Member State to apply derogation from the “Birds” Directive.”

FKNK stated that it is “further informed that the Electoral Commission may not be verifying all signatories’ relative qualifications of the petition, but will only be carrying out random checks.”

“The FKNK hopes that this will not be the case, since the outcome of the abolitionist referendum could have a devastating effect on the very lives of thousands of Maltese and Gozitan nationals and their families,” FKNK concluded.

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