Aaron Mifsud Bonnici.
I grant you, I’m not exactly objective. My friend and fellow activist Pia Żammit sued it-Torċa for digging up a several years old backstage photo of her in costume precariously bearing swastikas. She was acting in a comedy — ‘Allo! ‘Allo! — pretending to be a member of the French resistance pretending to be a Nazi sympathiser.
It-Torċa, out to discredit anyone who dared suggest their darling Joseph Muscat was, in the ranking of historical rascals, floating somewhere between Rasputin and Ferdinand Marcos, portrayed Pia Żammit as a Nazi sympathiser. She isn’t.
Here’s Aaron Mifsud Bonnici’s plea this morning in final arguments in the case as reported by Malta Today:
Lawyer Aaron Mifsud Bonnici, for the GWU-owned newspaper, told the court that “a photo of a well-known person wearing a swastika is a controversial action”. He insisted that expressing disagreement with such actions is a fundamental human right. “The controversy isn’t that she is a Nazi but that she was making light of the symbols of Nazism.”
“The controversy is not that she sympathises with Nazism but the use of it in comedy,” he argued. “Silly things about matters of great importance is insensitive,” he concluded.
I won’t dignify that with a response. It’s just not worth the time. I’ll do a bit of this instead.