RTK103 vowed to defend itself against a Broadcasting Authority fine for refusing to air far-right views, after it was called to a meeting with a BA secretary linked to Imperium Europa on Thursday afternoon.
On Thursday, RTK103 received notice of an urgent meeting to be held in the afternoon from BA secretary Adriano Spiteri – who until recently was an active member of Imperium Europa - to justify its position or face a fine of €4,190.
The station was fined for refusing to air the far-right views of Imperium Europa led by convicted racist Norman Lowell.
Despite having officially stepped down from his position with Imperium Europa, Spiteri said at a birthday gathering for Lowell in 2020 that he disagrees with a previous decision by the BA to ban an Imperium Europa broadcast on immigrants. He went on to publicly condemn Malta's hate speech legislation during an intervention on RTK103.
Only last January, the BA fined RTK103 €6,410 after its radio host Andrew Azzopardi said he would never allow Lowell to express his “racist’ views on the radio programme.
In 2013, an appeals court confirmed a Magistrates' Court judgment finding Lowell guilty of three charges of inciting racial hatred.
In a statement, an RTK103 spokesperson said: “As a radio station we took the decision to steer clear of inviting any of the candidates contesting the European Parliament elections and the BA’s stand in our regard has once again showed it is clearly skewed in favour of Imperium Europa."
The spokesperson said it was impossible to be assured of a fair hearing when repeated attempts to exclude Spiteri’s presence from its meetings with the BA were turned down by the authority board.
Furthermore, he added, the BA’s position became clearer this week when it concluded that Imperium Europa’s misleading advert showing an edited clip of Peppi Azzopardi saying “Norman Lowell was right” was not in breach of any law.
A long-standing voice for human rights, Azzopardi decried the manipulation and condemned the BA.
The spokesperson said: “It’s a sad state of affairs when the authority that should be upholding impartiality is instead resorting to these unbalanced tactics.”
The spokesperson referred the BA to a key provision in the Broadcasting Act that specifically states “audiovisual commercial communications shall not: prejudice respect for human dignity; include or promote any discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation”.
“The Broadcasting Authority is willfully ignoring a key provision in the very act that governs its existence and conduct, as well as continually defending an individual who has been convicted by Malta’s courts of inciting racial hatred and has publicly declared that ‘Nazism was alright at the time’.
“It is ironic that as the world commemorates the 80th anniversary of D-Day– during which thousands of Allied soldiers gave up their lives to end the tyranny of Nazism across Europe – the BA is doing what it can to ensure that fascist sentiments can still be expressed on Malta’s airwaves.”