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Matthew Vella
The shadow report prepared for the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) has called for an end to the detention of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers, saying detention was “perpetuating the impression that they (immigrants) constitute a security threat”.
The report, part of a series of Europe-wide reports on racism in the EU during 2005, deals with the many faces of racism and discrimination in Malta, and brings to light the ban on media from reporting on the conditions in detention camps and the plight of detainees.
“Not allowing the media to report… hinders them from fulfilling their fundamental role in any democratic society of informing the public and in particular of contributing to dispel xenophobic and racist sentiments,” author Christian Attard wrote.
The Malta report also stressed the need for government to balance action in its management of illegal immigration with concrete measures aimed at integration.
Attard wrote it was “deeply disappointing” that the most part of the Race Directive, the European law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment, education, social security, health care and access to goods and services, remains unimplemented.
According to the Directive, all new member states have to offer rights of redress to victims of racial discrimination, and establish a body for the promotion of equal treatment.
“Such a body could play a vital role in providing a remedy for the information deficit that has hampered not only government and local law enforcement and NGOs in assessing the extent of racial violence and discrimination and developing an adequate response, but even the European Union Monitoring Centre.”
Attard described as “astounding” the fact that some officials were not even aware of the existence of the Race Directive. The author said the only aspect of the Directive that had been implemented in the law concerned employment. “These regulations however do not apply to public employment or employment within the disciplines forces. Consequently, no protection exists against discrimination outside of employment.”
Earlier this year, harsher criminal sanctions were implemented for racially motivated crimes.
The report also recommended that police are given the necessary tools and training to address “elements of extremism” in Maltese society that were perpetuating racism through hate speech and racist violence.
2005 saw a general increase in racist attacks: in May a Somali man was stopped by a woman in the street and then approached by a man who stabbed him and kicked him in the face, stealing his mobile phone. In June, four Eritreans were surrounded by a group of between eight and 10 young men who punched them repeatedly in the face, whereas in another incident a Eritrean was attacked by four men who stole his mobile phone and his Lm200 wage packet. Far-right activities also increased during the year, with flyers threatening migrants with death left outside the Hal Far centre back in July, and a demonstration held by the Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana (ANR) against illegal immigration in which university lecturer Philip Beattie controversially called for Malta not to become the “toilet of the Mediterranean”.
The report also lamented the negative portrayal of immigrations by the left-leaning l-orrizont and It-Torca, the newspapers owned by the General Workers Union, which had carried articles about makeshift weapons confiscated from immigrants and “black prostitutes” roaming the streets close to the open centres.
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