Vella Gera Charged

Li Tkisser Sewwi author Alex Vella Gera has been interrogated by the police and is to be summoned to court on the 20th of April. 

The author is now facing the same charges as Mr Camilleri and the court case is expected to be heard on April 20. Mr Camilleri is being charged with breaching Article 208 of the Criminal Code, which deals with the distribution of pornographic or obscene material among others, which could lead to a prison sentence of up to six months or a fine of up to €465.87. He is also being charged with Articles 3 and 7 of the Press Act, which in this case deal with printed matter directly or indirectly “injuring public morals or decency”. Under these charges, guilty parties could face up to three months in prison or a fine. (Times)

So the story lingers on and with it will linger the hundred questions Maltese society is failing to answer about censorship and gagging. You could argue that at this point it is less about censorship than about our “public morals and decency” as read and expressed through the medium of writing. A condemnation of Vella Gera and Camilleri would not just be a statement on morals though it would be a gagging order for those who dare (because the mere writing and expressing certain thoughts becomes a dare) write similar stuff in the future – so there would be no doubt that this is pre-emptive censorship of some kind. The law is there to be applied. There is no doubt that the interpreters of the law will be called upon to assess what the levels of “public morals and decency” are – this time public morality will be judged away from the baying rabble – which is a good point at least because the law does not have the ulterior motives of the baying rabble (be they christian fundamentalist, politically biased or simply modern day pharisees).

Interestingly, the police might have to take into consideration those on the net who have been “audacious” enough to reproduce the story that appeared on Realtà. Early on in the saga a couple of websites deemed it necessary to throw down the gauntlet and show their support by publishing Li Tkisser Sewwi in its entirety. J’accuse chose not to and we gave our reasons why – even though we do not agree with the interpretation of “public morals and decency” being given.  The police have a problem on their hands. If they are consistent then blog owners should be arraigned in court on the same charges as Mark Camilleri. You see, as I told Kenneth Zammit Tabona in a comment on his Times piece yesterday, blogs are not ex lege and fall within the same laws as, say, newspapers.

This is not an incitement or egging on of the police. It is a call for consistency. I sincerely hope that Mark Camilleri, Alex Vella Gera and whoever else is arraigned in court on this business is acquitted. The acquittal should come on the basis of what I believe to be a proper interpretation of “public morality and decency” as well as “distribution of pornographic material”. A new line is being drawn in that courtroom – a new assessment of the state of the nation – morality wise. It is a battle of sorts that requires a clear-headed reasoning which looks not only at where we are coming from but also where many of us aspire to be going. In this particular battle it is important to consider the whole nation of individuals as well as the common good. The outcome of this battle risks making many of us exiles within our own nation – no longer able to identify parts of themselves with the rest of the population.

As for other blogs and publication – the reason J’accuse believes more arraignments should be on the agenda is straightforward. Particularly at this moment in time when we are running a clear and present risk of alienating large swathes of the population from the powerful tools of the internet, it must be made clear that like any other medium the internet and publications thereupon fall within the scrutiny of the long arm of the law. People like Daphne Caruana Galizia who published the story knowingly, purposely and with the declared intention of being prosecuted (see quote below) should be prosecuted for the very reason of giving a clear message to anybody who is doubting it: blogs and the internet are also subject to the law. Not only do we believe that Daphne should be prosecuted for the sake of coherence of the law – but we also believe that Alex, Mark and Daphne should be acquitted – for the sanity of our nation’s future.

Regardless of the merits of the story, I am publishing it in solidarity with the editor, a 21-year-old history student, and with the student newspaper, which like all student newspapers is there to experiment and push the boundaries – or should be. If the police don’t prosecute me for publishing it, then they can’t prosecute him either. And if they prosecute me, we’ll all have a ball (and leave them just one, like Hitler, to be getting on with). – DCG, 7.11.09

Here’s to hoping that the “ball” results in a clear message in favour of the freedom of expression. If the law is something we do not agree with then we should do all that is legally possible to try to change it (or the current interpretation there is of it) – but we can never ever be led to believe that anyone is above the law.

We are all servants of the law, so that we may be free.

(The Bertoon first appeared on the Malta Independent on Sunday on the 8th November 2009 – accompanying the article “Offensive Behaviour”

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Press Release from the Front Kontra c-Censura

As soon as the police realised that Alex Vella Gera was in the Courts to give his witness in the case Police against Editor of Ir-Realta’, Mark Camilleri, ordered him to wait for him after the court session,so as to ask him to be interrogated. Alex Vella Gera came to testify on the request of the Defense. He co-operated fully with the police and was interrogated by Inspector Jesmond Micallef. The police have filed criminal charges against Alex Vella Gera for writing a story about a fictional character with a sexist attitude, called Li Tkisser Sewwi, which was published in the 8th issue of Ir-Realta’.

The Front Against Censorship would like to give its total solidarity to Alex Vella Gera, a young and innovative artist who is being persecuted by the police of Malta. This persecution is a direct attack on the world of art and literature and the Front abhors the way the police are handling the situation, as they are making it worse as time goes by. It is greatly hypocritical of the police to persecute writers who write stories about sexism instead of concentrating more on persecuting pimps, tackling the problem of domestic violence and ignoring sexual and racial discrimination. There are no excuses which justify these authoritarian acts and the feeble statement that the police are just doing their job is totally false. If they were doing their job, they would tackle the problems mentioned earlier and not persecute innovative artists and critical editors.

The Front regrets the fact that the Minister of Justice has no problem with the authoritarian actions of the police and is frustrated that since its inception, the Minister has failed to address this problem by checking the authoritarian actions of the police, who now have turned out to be Malta’s prime literary critics.