Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party reiterated its solidarity with Mark Camilleri – university student and editor of the student newspaper Ir-Realta and called for the abolition of outdated outdated censorship and obscenity laws, replacing them with a rating system to protect children and with laws against hate crimes and against the instigation of violence against people because of their like ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender.

AD spokesperson on EU and international affairs, Prof. Arnold Cassola said, “This type of medieval style censorship are unacceptable by EU standards.”

“The onus now lies on the government and parliament. The government should not hide behind the smokescreen of anachronistic laws while the police prosecutes people for content similar to that found in foreign literary works legally imported and sold in bookshops. On the other hand if the Labour opposition really means business in promoting a secular and progressive agenda it should present a bill in parliament to replace these anachronistic laws with regulations fitting a modern European democracy.”

“The literary merit or lack of it is not the point here. What is unaccaptable, in this day and age is to censor a student newspaper simply because of their explicit content or the opinions expressed by fictional characters.”

“AD is therefore calling tougher legislation against hate crimes such as racism and xenophobia, irrespective of the religious, political or cultural belief in question. This is essential in a society based on pluralism and respect of diversity.”

AD is also calling for a revision and updating of the laws on obscenity and for the replacement of the censorship board with a classification board whose job should be that of issuing ratings. AD calls on the university authorities to lift the ban on newspaper Ir-Realta. It is ironic that whilst a lot of controversy surrounded Mark Camilleri’s newspaper, nothing was said about university organisation SDM which interviewed Norman Lowell and published his racist and hate filled beliefs on the internet.

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