Pro-life lobbies files complaint over PBS ‘censorship’ of President’s abortion comment in Holocaust commemoration

President George Vella said that millions of unborn babies were being killed before seeing the light of day, during a Holocaust commemoration

Malta’s pro-life lobbies filed a complaint with the Broadcasting Authority, claiming the public broadcaster PBS had censored a ‘strong’ comment against abortion made by the President of the Republic George Vella during a Holocaust commemoration.

The coalition Inti Tista’ Ssalvani – which groups Life Network Foundation, Doctors For Life, and I See Life – claimed the 26 January news bullettin did not carry a comment from Vella in which he alluded to the “millions of unborn babies being killed before they even have the possibility to see the light of day” during his Holocaust speech.

The speech was met with criticism from pro-choice campaigners who said the allusion to abortion in what was a commemoration of the genocide of 6 million Jews, homosexual, Romany, and other victims of Nazi-fascism, was inappopriate.

“This strong statement from the President deserved attention and the fact that PBS decided not to report this, particularly in the present circumstances is an attempt to censor the President,” the pro-life coalition said. “This is not the first case where the PBS newsroom has chosen to be selective and censor its reporting. This was also done in the case of Ms. Prudente where the PBS newsroom completely censored what the doctors said.”

The coalition said this was in violation of the provision of the Constitution of Malta, as well as the provisions in the Broadcasting law, which extend this obligation directly to the public broadcaster and which impose on it the obligation to ensure that the services of its news are objective and comprehensive.

“This cannot be done if the public broadcaster, instead of serving as an instrument to provide all the information to which the people have a right, is an instrument of censorship.”

It said that for these reasons, it is asking for the comments of the President to be reported without censorship.