There was no doubt that bird hunting was a sacred cow for the Maltese hunting lobby.
Now it has turned its guns onto young university students with a libel suit for having the audacity to depict hunting in an illustration of a student pamphlet.
The Federazzjoni Kaccaturi Nassaba u Konservazzjonisti (FKNK) has filed a libel suit against a group of university students who publish the monthly left-wing pamphlet Ir-Realtà, a bilingual, avant-garde collection of political comment and reports on human rights and environmentalism.
The FKNK are suing the editor of Ir-Realtà, Mark Camilleri, over a clever front-page illustration in the May 2007 issue of a skull over two crossed rifles with ‘FKNK’ stamped beneath it.
The issue’s editorial lambastes the political parties for caving in to hunters’ demands, and calls for civil society to face the intimidation from hunters head-on. “Irrationality begets violence and when violence is not considered to be a threat to the law, it has to be civil society to respond and make its voice heard,” the editorial ran with respect to incidents of vandalism in Qrendi and the Ghadira natural reserve, and the arraignment of hunters involved in scuffles during a demonstration earlier this year.
Contacted by MaltaToday, FKNK secretary-general Lino Farrugia declined to comment over a case citing sub judice – still under judicial review.
Asked what the lobby found libellous in the newspaper, Farrugia said, “Haven’t you seen the front page?”
He said that although the pamphlet was penned by university students, “this does not mean they can write and publish whatever they like.”
Libel cases are not always straightforward matters. In the case of the university pamphlet, it appears there is no stated libellous allegation associated with the organisation, but the implications of the FKNK’s actions are serious: by claiming the use of the initials FKNK beneath a skull is a ‘libellous’ action, it is actively calling for a restriction of freedom to express one’s self by either the written word or art itself.
And just as with their pastime, in the case of their latest reactionary act against one 22-year-old university student the FKNK just won’t pick on someone their own size.

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt