The government should move to update obscenity laws seeing that it has removed theatre censorship, according to Labour’s shadow culture minister Owen Bonnici.
“Labour was once again on the right side of history,” he told a press conference yesterday, recalling the Nationalist Party’s criticism when he had defended victims of censorship.
Dr Bonnici welcomed the government’s change of heart and the fact that the “beautiful” play Stitching can now be performed.
“Artists are crucial to building a modern Malta and need to be free to provoke thought, going where politicians do not dare go,” he said.
However, he pointed out that there was more to do and questioned whether the new changes were a fruit of “conviction or convenience” on the part of the government.
While welcoming the Opposition’s agreement to the proposed amendments, which it said were aimed at strengthening artistic expression and reflect the maturity of artists and audiences in a contemporary society, the government denied that the changes were simply in classification.
The step which was taken, it said in a statement, had to be seen in the context of the National Cultural Policy launched in July.
This policy was drawn up following a wide consultation process, including with the Opposition.
It was ironic that the Opposition was saying the changes showed it was on the right side of history on the subject.
For this implied it wanted the people to forget the times when it had been proven to be on the wrong side - when it had been against plularism in broadcasting, when it had censored the use of the words nation and the name of then Opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami and when it had censored foreign politicians who wanted to speak about the situation in Matla under Labour.
The Labour Party had also censored and allowed university students who wanted to express their thoughts to be beaten up. It had also wanted to censor the Maltese people's right to become members of the European Union, the government said.
Dr Bonnici said: “If these laws were enacted in 2008, Mark Camilleri and Alex Vella Gera would still have been charged in court for their story,” he said, referring to the case of student newspaper Realtà.
Dr Bonnici said the criminal court freed the two young men but the government appealed the decision through the Attorney General. He asked the government to say whether it still stood by its appeal.
Article 208, the blasphemy law under which the men were charged, must still be revised. And the committee which was meant to meet to update obscenity laws was never set up by Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, who, he said, had “slept on the matter”.
Asked whether Labour felt films should still be exposed to possible bans, such as for pornography, he said adults should be able to decide what they wanted to watch.
Meanwhile, Alternattiva Demokratika welcomed the updating of legislation but said this “sudden shift in policy” from the Nationalist Party sounded like a pre-electoral gimmick.