In a few days in Strasbourg, the European Parliament will be honouring Oleg Sentsov with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for vocally opposing Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. We are honouring his plight and his courage to stand for the freedom to question and speak out against public authority. This is evidently a value which we hold very dear in Malta as well.

The European Parliament Sakharov Prize is a yearly celebration of our values as Europeans. Previous winners of the Sakharov Prize include Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Malala Yousafzai. In my capacity as Head of the European Parliament Office, I invited Sakharov Prize laureates to Valletta in the past. Two protagonists of the Arab Spring, Ali Ferzat, a Syrian cartoonist later beaten to death for depicting Assad’s excesses, and Ahmed al-Senussi, imprisoned for 30 years in Libya by Gaddafi, visited us in Malta for public lectures in the past.

We are Europeans. We are vociferous in our criticism of fundamental rights abuses wherever they take place. It is as if our attachment to human rights is so profound that we will not tolerate any bargaining with it, neither here nor in any faraway land. And yet, not all abuse of human rights means having broken limbs or spending decades in prison as with Ferzat or Senussi to weaken our democracy and our fundamental rights. There are other, very subtle ways of debasing our fundamental freedoms in plain daylight.

The media revelations last week that a government Minister is picking and choosing the friendly outlets covering supposedly ‘public’ announcements is a clear indication in that direction.

Minister Konrad Mizzi’s attempts, endorsed by the Prime Minister, to bypass the media while still using government friendly outlets, are simply outrageous and unimaginable in any other democracy. If the Minister deemed it unwise to have journalists around, he should have reconsidered the wisdom of his decision to hold on to office notwithstanding the storm surrounding him.

The exclusion of ‘unfriendly’ journalists is not just bad taste. It is illegal to willingly and strategically exclude part of the media from covering events or announcements of possible public interest. This is one of our most important fundamental rights as Europeans, expressly protected by the Treaty on European Union and the attached Charter which in Article 11 underlines the “right to receive and impart information without interference” and respect of “the freedom and pluralism of the media”.

This is not a matter to take lightly. I welcome the categorical condemnation by the Institute of Maltese Journalists and I would appeal to the Maltese media to consider taking further concrete steps to stand up to this abuse. While it is understandable that media houses have to compete for sales and clicks, this kind of threat to media freedom calls for a show of solidarity to protect the profession itself.

Having seen this flagrant abuse of media freedom happening in Malta, our MEPs will be travelling to Strasbourg next month to attend the plenary session which will honour Oleg Sentsov with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of thought. Three of them, belonging to the Nationalist Party, can hold their head high as they are not part of the affront to media freedom and fundamental human rights in their own country. Those belonging to the government on the other hand will need to find ways to cope with and cover this latest excess in a series which keep on adding to the list. They will have to contend with the reality of a government that would have us as the best in Europe, in so far as it is convenient.

 

Dr Agius is a PN candidate in the EP elections, a former head of the European Parliament Office and Cabinet member of the President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani