Opinion: Malta’s Police Must Stop This Shameful Comedy-Killing Lunacy
When the police start charging comedians for telling jokes about public people, that’s when you know free speech is seriously under threat.
Unfortunately, that’s what is happening in Malta right now. The prosecution of Dan Xuereb for telling a joke about River of Love pastor Gordon Manche is just the latest in a growing line of shocking police decisions on speech issues.
Matt Bonanno was famously charged over his “carpet bomb” joke but there have been other less publicised cases, including content creator Sarah Grech’s charge for an Instagram story in which she jokingly asked a dog if he would like to burn down a circus.
On the other side of the fence, River of Love’s own Matthew Grech was charged with “promoting” gay conversion therapy after he said during an interview that being gay is incongruent with the teachings of the Bible. Even more bizarrely, his two interviewers – Mario Camilleri and Rita Bonnici – were hit with the same charges.
People from all sides of the fence are being targeted here and it doesn’t seem as though police are specifically trying to stifle views from the “left” or the “right”. So what’s happening here?
Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa
Honestly, it seems as though the police have completely abdicated their responsibility in assessing whether a comment constitutes an actual crime or not and are leaving it up to the courts to decide whenever they receive a report alleging hate speech, slander or the extremely generic crime of computer misuse.
And that’s seriously problematic. Not only is it a precious waste of police resources that is clogging the justice system up even more but it’s obviously going to have a chilling effect.
Thing is, even if Dan Xuereb wins the case, he would still have had to go through the hassle of engaging a lawyer, physically attending court sittings and waiting for a judgement, which – knowing Malta’s courts – could well take a few years.
And what will he earn if he wins? Absolutely nothing other than not having to pay legal fees.
Meanwhile, the person filing a report (Manche in this case) has zero risk other than perhaps some negative coverage and comments if they lose the case. No matter the outcome of the case, he would have managed to disrupt his life without any risk from his end at all.
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And what effect do you think this will have on other comedians? At the very least, they’re going to think twice before poking fun at public people in their comedy routines. They might water down the jokes, even at the cost of making them less funny, or abandon them altogether in favour of ‘safer’ topics.
Is this what we want? A less humourous and more paranoid society?
Manche has every right to file a report if he genuinely feels a crime has been committed – but the police have a duty to launch a proper investigation before pressing charges.
After all, you can’t go the police and accuse someone of robbing your wallet and expect them to get charged with no evidence whatsoever.
And Manche could always have gone after Xuereb by filing a civil defamation suit if he really felt insulted. Of course, that route would have carried an element of financial risk, but if Manche wasn’t ready to take it, then why on earth should the police be more willing to do so with public funds?
But police are there to tackle crime, not to protect people’s feelings or act as a vessel for their revenge, and they should grow some courage to dismiss these reports as soon as they come in.
Cover photo: Left: Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa, Right: Comedian Dan Xuereb
Should the police have charged Dan Xuereb?
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