|
The police are “evaluating” the speeches made by a spokesman for the extremist group Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana during their 8 June anti-immigration protest held in Valletta. The Attorney General is expected to give his opinion on what are considered to be statements inciting violence.
So far no measures have been contemplated although the police and the AG’s office are still somehow analysing the content of the speeches, particularly by spokesman Paul Salomone who during the demonstration attacked MaltaToday editor Saviour Balzan, accusing him of being a ‘dirty communist’ and threatening to “tie his newspaper around his neck”. Salomone also threatened Xarabank presenter Peppi Azzopardi, who was reporting the event.
Salomone, who is a manager with a construction company, addressed a motley crowd of less than 200. Those in the crowd included Norman Lowell, a former BOV bank manager and now head of the white supremacist Nazi group Imperium Ewropa, and Kurt Guillaumier, former PN mayor and presently a San Gwann councillor and a member in the secretariat of Minister Francis Zammit Dimech.
In the same demonstration, NGOs Integra Foundation, Third World Group, Indymedia, Malta Gay Rights Movement and Moviment Graffitti staged a peaceful counter-protest calling for a halt to racism and incitement to violence.
Amnesty International issued a statement calling on the government to put combating racism and xenophobia a top priority for action.
|
