Cristina distances herself from charges against Realtà editor
Raphael Vassallo Education and Culture Minister Dolores Cristina this week expressed ‘serious concern’ at the announcement of legal proceedings against Mark Camilleri: a 21-year-old history student at the University of Malta, currently facing criminal charges for publishing an ‘obscene’ short story in a campus newspaper.
“I am genuinely and seriously concerned that matters have reached the stage where a 21-year-old University student faces these serious charges,” Cristina said on Friday, when news broke of Camilleri’s impending prosecution over the latest issue of ‘Ir-Realta’. “I have no doubt that Mark Camilleri was not aware that his venture into editorship would land him in this quandary.”
Distancing herself from the ongoing proceedings, Cristina also admitted that Malta’s current legislation regarding censorship and press freedoms in general is archaic, obsolete and in need of revision.
“I am on record as saying that we need to review all legislation that has to do with censorship and ensure that it reflects the realities of today’s society and its thinking,” she said. “The Draft National Cultural Policy, which has been approved by Cabinet, will be launched in the first week of February. It includes a recommendation that: ‘In terms of freedom of expression, the ministry responsible for culture shall initiate the process of updating Maltese legislation to make it reflect 21st century reality.”
The Education Minister was however evasive when asked whether she personally approves of the charges against Camilleri.
“This is not a case of the Minister’s approval or not. It is current legislation that dictates the order of the day.”
Published in the eighth issue of ‘Ir-Realta’, Alex Vella Gera’s ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’ attempts to depict the psychological workings of a warped, male chauvinist mind, in a brief dramatic monologue peppered with obscene language and scatological references.
Soon after its distribution on campus, however, the student newspaper was recalled by the University authorities, and in an opinion article published on 3 December University rector Prof. Juanito Camilleri confirmed that he himself had requested the intervention of the police.
The story has since enjoyed a new lease of life on the Internet, where it has ironically gained far more exposure than would have been possible had it remained only in print form.
Critical reactions have to date been mixed, with some readers complaining that the language is deliberately offensive and even nauseating, while others have commended the author for his attempt to portray an ‘inconvenient truth’ about the Maltese psyche.
Among Vella Gera’s most vociferous supporters are novelists Karl Schembri and Immanuel Mifsud, as well as Chamber of Advocates president Dr Andrew Borg Cardona, who has publicly offered to defend Mark Camilleri for free.
However, few within academic circles have so far commented publicly on the case brought forward by their own University’s rector – least of all Professor Juanito Camilleri himself, who has once again declined to comment on the ongoing case he himself had instigated late last year.
“I have nothing to add to my previous article (of 3 December),” was the only message relayed through the University’s communications office on Friday.
Alternattiva Demokratika yesterday also reiterated its solidarity with Camilleri. International secretary Arnold Cassola said the government “should not hide behind the smokescreen of anachronistic laws while the police prosecutes people for content similar to that found in foreign literary works legally imported and sold in bookshops. On the other hand if the Labour opposition really means business in promoting a secular and progressive agenda it should present a bill in parliament to replace these anachronistic laws with regulations fitting a modern European democracy.”
AD is also calling the replacement of the censorship board with a classification board. “AD calls on the university authorities to lift the ban on newspaper ‘Ir-Realta.’ It is ironic that whilst a lot of controversy surrounded Mark Camilleri’s newspaper, nothing was said about university organisation SDM which interviewed Norman Lowell and published his racist and hate filled beliefs on the internet.”
More reactions to the Mark Camilleri case will appear in Wednesday’s edition of MaltaToday (13 January).
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