Raphael Vassallo
Alex Vella Gera, author of the controversial short story ‘Li Tkisser Sewwi’, was interrogated by the police at the Floriana depot yesterday, and will be charged in court with obscenity in the coming weeks.
The story in question was featured in the eighth edition of campus newspaper Ir-Realta’ last November, instantly provoking a nationwide furore after University rector Prof. Juanito Camilleri referred the publication to the police on grounds of obscene language.
Certainly the language used is hard-hitting, with Vella Gera aping the attitudes, mentality and vernacular of a sex-obsessed Maltese man offering ‘advice’ on how to treat women. But while some readers were shocked at the undiluted verisimilitude of the dialogue in the story, others were more shocked at the disproportionate reaction by the University authorities and the police.
Like Realta’ editor Mark Camilleri – who has already been charged with breaching Malta’s archaic obscenity laws – Vella Gera now faces a possible nine-month prison sentence and a fine of €400.
Contacted yesterday shortly after emerging from the police depot, an audibly stunned Vella Gera expressed his surprise and frustration at the ongoing proceedings.
“The interrogation itself was very civil,” he said over the phone. “They asked me all the usual things like, did you write this story? Etc.”
However, the author – who has a string of publications to his name, mainly involving poetry – made it clear that the experience has been a harrowing one.
“In Malta you have to be constantly on your guard,” he said with a hint of resignation. “You have to be careful not to overstep any prescribed lines, even if you’re not at all sure who prescribed these lines, or why. Maltese art can never hope to really progress under these circumstances...”
At the same time Vella Gera, like Mark Camilleri before him, indicates that he intends to fight the charges against him on the basis of the right to freedom of expression: which right is guaranteed by the European charter of Fundamental Human Rights, to which Malta is supposedly a signatory state.
“No, I’m not intimidated. I will fight it out to the end. But I was hoping to avoid court case if possible. This is an extra hassle I could have done without...”
Once again, Prof. Juanito Camilleri was unavailable for comment yesterday evening, and several attempts to reach him on his campus number proved futile.
So far, the University rector has meticulously avoided talking to MaltaToday about this issue, despite various requests since last November: when his actions resulted in the censorship of a newspaper on his campus, as well as the criminal prosecution of an editor and author.
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