A banned carnival float linking Archbishop Charles Scicluna and a Church residence to child abuse has rekindled discussions about censorship around controversial topics.

Plans for the float, dubbed ‘Jude’s hell’, emerged on social media on Thursday to much criticism.

Clare Vassallo

While detractors have decried the depiction as tasteless and lacking sensitivity, others have questioned the limits of freedom of expression in the wake of the float not being allowed to participate in the carnival festivities.

Culture Minister José Herrera described the float as “highly insensitive”, while Festivals Malta issued a statement saying that it openly disassociated itself from the float’s defamatory elements, while saying that it recognised that while “there should not be any barriers that hinder creativity legal parameters must always be observed and respected”.

Clare Vassallo

Former PBS chair Clare Vassallo told Times of Malta that while questions of good taste could be discussed endlessly, the float failed to make certain distinctions in its ideas that could be potentially libelous.

“In a sense, any form of control of expression is censorship,” Prof. Vassallo said.

“Traditionally, carnival is an event where ideas are turned on their heads and expressed satirically, but I think there is an important distinction to be made between the individual and the institution.

“It’s one thing to criticise the Church, but I find that it’s a bit of an unfair comparison to depict Mgr Scicluna as if he is personally to blame.”

Vickie Ann Cremona.

Vicki Ann Cremona, Mark Camilleri 

Academic Vicki Ann Cremona, who lectures at the School of Performing Arts, said that the subject of the float chose an easy target at which to direct their energy.

“I think with all the mess that is going on in our country, the Archbishop is easy prey,” Prof. Cremona said.

“Our country has been through an intense political crisis with so much potential for satire. It seems like a very deliberate choice to target the Archbishop and avoid other political subjects that are just as hard to talk about.”

National Book Council executive chairman Mark Camilleri noted that it was ironic that the first act of the Culture Minister was an act of censorship.

Immanuel Mifsud

Renowned author Immanuel Mifsud said the minister’s intervention raised new questions for limits imposed on artistic expression.

“When we first started having these public discussions about freedom of expression during the introduction of laws that removed the vilification of religion I had my suspicions and the way this incident has unfolded proves them right,” Dr Mifsud said.

Immanuel Mifsud

“The vilification of religion still makes a lot of people uncomfortable, I think this is clear.”

Dr Mifsud said questions of whether artistic expression was in good or bad taste would always arise and interpretation was never absolute.

“Why and how people form their opinions about freedom of expression and how those opinions can change depending on the situation is rather interesting.”

Dr Mifsud said the Culture Minister had set somewhat of a precedent in intervening in the situation, and the judgment of the float as insensitive didn’t do much to resolve such debate if it was not made clear what the criteria for such a conclusion were.

“If we do not know what the criteria for an ‘insensitive’ work of creativity is, what will happen next time? Let’s say next carnival a float depicting Yorgen Fenech and Daphne Caruana Galizia emerges, would that also be banned?” Dr Mifsud said.

“If we say artists have absolute freedom of expression and suddenly we’ve reached another limit, without getting into the merits of whether it’s in good or bad taste, the criteria of how we make those decisions needs to be explained.”

“It’s important for artists to know these things. If I’m going to produce a work of satire and the Culture Minister has the power to regulate my satirical caricatures, I need to have a clear understanding of what going over the limit is.”