GUEST POST: LABOUR PREACHES FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. THAT’S RICH.

This is a guest post, which means it was written by somebody other than Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Two representatives of the Labour Party very recently gave a press conference in reaction to the government’s moves to enhance freedom of artistic expression in literature and in the visual arts.

These spokesmen believe Labour has the right credentials and the proper culture to teach anyone what freedom of expression is all about. They are the natural experts.

They fall back on years of fruitful experience in promoting freedom of expression in Malta whenever the occasion gave them the chance to do so.

When Labour was in power, the most absolute freedom of expression flourished. Everyone was perfectly free to agree with them and even to praise them. All the others were beaten up, persecuted, had their property ransacked or set on fire, prosecuted, framed, shot at or murdered.

They all got the punishment that dissent richly deserves.

Were these present-day Labour spokesmen referring to the gagging of the Maltese and foreign press during their golden years? May I remind them how devoutly they cherished freedom of expression whenever they had the power to suppress it?

Most people over the age of 40 remember the arson of The Times of Malta offices and printing press by well known labour supporters, with the employees trapped inside under the vacant stare of large contingents of Labour government police forces, who moved not one finger to stop the violence, rescue the employees or arrest the criminals.

What most do not remember is that Dom Mintoff had announced it in Parliament beforehand: “if The Times and The Sunday Times continue to taunt the Maltese people, we cannot be held responsible for their safety”.

Hint, hint? Incitement, incitement.

What most do not remember is that after the gutting of the free press by fire, one leading Labour MP vented his frustration in Parliament that the building had not been totally razed to the ground.

Minister Alex Sceberras Trigona later demanded a full investigation on why and how The Times had been rebuilt: “If necessary the government will legislate on the matter for it could not tolerate the presence of such a strong, independent entity in the country, capable of influencing public opinion”.

Prime Minister Mifsud Bonnici attacked The Times, accusing it of waging a dirty campaign against the Russians and the Libyans “instead of praising these countries and governments, The Times attempted to besmirch these countries and governments”.

And he finished off with another ominous threat – meant only to foster freedom of expression, I guess: “The time will come when the people will settle accounts with these newspapers which are harming the interests of the people”.

Prime Minister KMB genuinely believed that the democratic punishment for criticizing Gaddafi and Brezhnev was a second round of arson directed at the undocile presses.

It was Prime Minister KMB, too, who in parliament threatened the Catholic Church’s newspaper. He advised that, “as a gesture of goodwill towards the government”, the Catholic Church should cease publication.

It was Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, too, who had given immunity from all criminal proceedings to government press releases. In practice, this meant that the Opposition and the free media were subject to the laws of libel, sedition (ask Michael Falzon, though not the Labour MP), incitement, and to any other law restrictive of freedom of expression.

But the government was guaranteed the right to defame, to threaten, to intimidate and to insult, through its Department of Information releases and statements – with total immunity.

Yes, these were all Labour measures to enhance freedom of expression.

We are to forget, I suppose, the prosecution of public officers who criticised the government (Censu Galea, Carmel Cacopardo etc).

The rule that restricted civil servants from writing in the newspapers was only enforced on Opposition (Nationalist) spokesmen: those who criticised Labour were dismissed from their job; those who praised Labour were promoted.

Some freedom of expression there, in the same basket with bombs exploding in front of Nationalist Party printing presses and the arrests and detention in police headquarters of “editors, contributors, reporters and photographers of Nationalist Party and The Times newspapers”.

Or perhaps freedom of expression was glorified when “several press and private photographers were arrested after filming the police in action, and, on some occasions, their films were confiscated and their cameras destroyed”.

This, we presume, is the model of freedom of expression the Labour spokesmen lament a Nationalist government has not respected and would love us to return to.

Maybe the freedom of artistic expression prevalent under Labour was exemplified by the banning in Malta of films like Raid on Entebbe, because Muammar Gaddafi objected to it, or the beating up on stage, during a Christmas pantomime for children, of the actors who had passed a harmless joke about taps being water-free.

The posse of Labour thugs who assaulted the actors was led by the Labour government’s Director of Culture.

I understand their now being nostalgic about the tributes to cultural freedom which they invariably paid whenever they had the power to do so.

Perhaps I am missing something here.

Labour underlined how besotted it is with freedom of expression in the way it dealt with the foreign press. The Foreign Interference Act virtually banned foreign journalists from reporting from Malta.

Mr Toni Pellegrini, Director of Information and later head of the Broadcasting Authority, justified this to the International Press Institute: the Labour government was not interfering with the free flow of information, but “it only interferes with the free flow of lies”.

Of course, the sole arbiter of what praise was worthy of circulation, and what criticism (lies) was to be suppressed, was Mr Toni Pellegrini.

In virtue of this abject respect for freedom of expression, The Times (London) and The Sunday Times (London) were banned from sale in Malta, and later it was a criminal offence to sell them on news-stands.

A correspondent of The Times (London) who had come to report on the general election in Malta, was forcibly put on the first plane back home as soon as he landed.

But it wasn’t just politics.

Every time Italian gossip magazines carried features (with compromising photographs) about the unorthodox love life of Mr Mintoff or his stalwarts – including one showing him on a Maltese businessman’s yacht accompanied by topless women – the magazines were banned or the offending pages scissored out.

In the name of freedom of expression, it was considered unhealthy to let the people know.

A university student was arrested and charged in court – for looking fixedly at a Labour politician. The Labour regime guaranteed his full freedom of expression. Of course, that did not include looking hard at a Labour professor of democracy.

The meeting of the European Christian Democratic Parties, to be held in Malta, had to be cancelled at the last moment – because its German chairman had previously criticised the Labour regime. He was apprehended as soon as he landed and immediately deported.

The same happened to an Italian MP who came to Malta to address the Nationalist youth movement.

And when a confederation of Maltese industrialists invited a former United States ambassador to address one of their meetings, his visit was vetoed by the Labour government.

The Irish media company Radharc Films, producer of documentaries for TV stations, was refused permission to visit Malta “because the Minister of Education was not available to be interviewed”.

A reporter from Il Resto del Carlino of Bologna was assaulted by five government employees while interviewing passers-by in the street and his camera, notepad and diary were violently taken from him. All in aid of freedom of expression.

Another reporter from the Roman daily Il Giornale who approached a university student to ask him some questions was arrested and roughed up, locked up at Police HQ and interrogated, because he was working in Malta without a permit.

You needed a freedom-of-expression permit from a Labour government, to ask a question at the University.

Just as it was to enhance freedom of expression that the Ministry of Foreign affairs sent a strongly worded note to all diplomatic missions in Malta. Dr Alex Sceberras Trigona, today the Labour Party’s international secretary and back then its foreign minister, ordered them never to have any contact with any Nationalist – including inviting any opposition member to official receptions.

The litany of direct assaults by the now-reconstructed freedom of expression virgins is virtually never-ending.

Just to round this off I will recollect when, before general elections, the Opposition party placed an electronic display panel on the roof of its headquarters, to flash news items.

Minster Lorry Sant ordered the power supply to the Opposition headquarters to be cut off, despite a court injunction prohibiting him from doing so. The headquarters remained in total darkness for over three months, before, during and after the election campaign.

Lorry Sant believed that allowing the Opposition to flash political news items would have dealt a mortal blow to freedom of expression.

We will avoid, for the present, recollecting how freedom of expression was cherished in broadcasting. Or how the freedom of expression of the courts was encouraged and pampered by the Labour politicians and thugs.

They gave the judges and magistrates the greatest freedom to rule in favour of the regime. That, too, is another chapter, long, disgraceful and sadly forgotten.

It is good that the Labour freedom-of-expression spokesmen of today have lamented how badly freedom of expression fares when they are not in power. That sermon echoes from an impeccably credible pulpit.