When Luke Mihalic’s nanna called him to ask about a Down Syndrome meme he had posted on Facebook, he couldn’t believe it.

“Everyone was talking about me suddenly, and when my nanna called me, she wasn’t very happy ux… I looked really bad,” Luke tells Lovin Malta a day after his life changed forever.

Luke was handed a hefty €10,000 fine by Magistrate Yana Micallef Stafrace over a joke he made in a Facebook group called ‘Uncensored Jokes Malta’, posting an image with a dark-humoured play on words involving Down Syndrome.

The meme featured an image of an unidentified person with Down Syndrome in front of a compauter accompanied by a caption that read: “Website is Down”, “Oh, me too”.

“It’s an old joke, it makes me laugh,” Luke said. “I wanted to post something there, and the first thing that came to mind was that dark joke, so I found it on Google, it was at night, I posted it and I slept,” he recounts.

“The next day I had some mixed comments, and got about 15 to 20 likes, with people saying it’s not that funny, but it’s a group specifically for these jokes, so I thought, ‘this is the place’.”

Later that same day, the police called Luke to go to the police station.

As someone who had never been to court or had a run in with the police before, this was pretty scary – and when he arrived, they told him he needed to give a statement as he was being taken to court for his post the previous night.

Still in shock that this happened to him, Luke tried to understand how it came about.

“Whoever did this took a screenshot and sent it to former Disabilities Commissioner Oliver Scicluna, and this guy took it against me – but he should never have even seen it, he wasn’t in the group. And now suddenly I look so bad…”

Since the fine, multiple comedians have come forward, warning this will have a chilling effect on free speech. Some bloggers, such as Mark Camilleri, even went so far as to post even more memes related to Down Syndrome.

“I didn’t deserve this,” Luke says. “They put my name out, ruined my reputation, and I can’t even take anyone to court for the damages…”

Luke believes that what happened is particularly unfair and exaggerated since he was in a group specifically saying it was a safe space for these types of comments.

“It’s like going into a restaurant and complaining there’s food in there…”

“I still don’t think I deserved anything, but if it was €2,000 I would pay it without appeal, but €10,000…” he trails off. 

“I’m not a bad guy,” he says adamantly. “This is just some dark humour… I have no problem with anyone and I would never ever make fun of anyone… it was just a small play on words.”