PL welcomes plans to revamp censorship laws but says more needs to be done

The Labour Party has welcomed the draft legal notice published yesterday which will put a stop to the censorship of plays and films but said action also needed to be taken on obscenity laws under which controversial writer Alex Vella Gera and editor Mark Camilleri had faced criminal charges.

Addressing a news conference this afternoon, PL spokesman Owen Bonnici asked the government what it was going to do regarding the case of Mr Vella Gera and Mr Camilleri.

Although the court had ruled that Mr Vella Gera's story Li Tkisser Sewwi, did not qualify as obscene and pornographic, the Attorney General had appealed the decision and the appeal is still pending.

He said he was glad that productions such as Stitching, which was a beautiful play, would no longer be banned but with the proposed changed Mr Vella Gera and Mr Camilleri would still have been tried in court.

On the proposed changes, Dr Bonnici said these were welcomed and showed that, yet again, the PL was on the right side of history and the government eventually followed suit.

But was it a move of conviction or convenience, especially considering the statements made during the debate on the issue, especially by Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici. Moreover, the government had not done anything to defend the victims of the censorship regime.

Dr Bonnici said that Minister Mifsud Bonnici had never called a meeting of the committee he had set up to update censorship legislation.

He said that the PL would be giving its feedback on the proposed changes.