I have to admit that I’m disappointed by my good friend Dr David Friggieri’s opinion article “a few considerations on the issue of censorship”.
David, who is a fellow lawyer and an expert in European law, should know that one should focus on principles, not examples. In the Ir-Realtà case, the actual story is the example, not the principle. In all honesty the Realtà story did not intrigue me at all, having left me quite indifferent when I read it, and no, I won’t read it to my two year-old daughter! When my daughter acquires her own level of maturity, then she can decide for herself what to read and not to read.
But that’s totally beside the point. It does not make a difference whether the Realtà story offended me, excited me, left me indifferent or whether I would touch it with a bargepole or with my naked hands – a look at the leading Handyside judgement of the European Court for Human Rights (www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1976/5.html) says it all.
The principle is that it is totally anachronistic and blasphemous that in today’s Malta an editor be arraigned to court, facing charges which may lead up to imprisonment, for publishing a fictitious story in a University newspaper.
I go one step further. Labour strongly believes in a total overhaul of the present legislation so that the right of artistic expression is strengthened and brought in line with obtaining European values and we have acted upon this belief.
Since the stupid ban of the play ‘Stitching’ last year, the Culture Minister has been saying that the laws governing artistic expression are archaic and obsolete. Yet, things have worsened in the last 12 months as the Realtà case aptly proves! That is why Labour has challenged the government to re-convene the Obscenities Committee that has been left dormant for the past 35 years. The government reconvened this committee and had the cheek of accusing us of being blinded by political judgement.
However, all this – the calling for the committee which was done in that very same press conference and its actual setting up – was immaterial for the opinionist and did not even deem it worthy of at least a passing reference, preferring to zero instead on a YouTube/Net TV clip.
Rather than spending his energy and time accusing Labour “of trying to gain brownie points... but is still guarded and conservative” and that we’re leading the debate towards the “unfortunate trivialisation of the issues surrounding censorship” I would like David to come up with concrete proposals on how to tackle the core issues so that we can discuss them, along with other leading experts’ opinions, in the newly set-up Obscenities Committee.
I am sure, and I am saying this with honesty, that with his expertise and academic background, Dr Friggieri can join us and give a very good input in this endeavour to put Malta in line with the other European countries in so far as the freedom of artistic expression is concerned.
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