Why deporting criminals will not work

The latest right-wing trend in Europe is to call for the mass deportations of foreigners and once again Professor Carmel Vassallo’s latest contributino to MaltaToday, ‘Why foreign criminals must be deported’, is littered with logical fallacies and selectively targets a particular category of foreigners; namely Muslims.

In giving examples of people arraigned in court in Malta he selectively mentions names associated with Islam and North African/Middle Eastern countries. 

Vassallo writes that the Muslim minority in Malta is “overwhelmingly law-abiding, hard-working and intent mostly on giving their children a safe environment to grow.”

Yet, he says that over the last few years the number of Muslims has grown considerably “as has their number as a proportion of the island’s population” and quoting the figure of 30,000 Muslims currently living in Malta, he asks, “what consequences does this have for Malta?”

He goes on to conclude his article by saying that he will do his utmost “to prevent those who want to impose upon us a retrograde model of society incompatible with, if not diametrically opposed, to our values from reaching their goal.”

The professor once again fails to explain which values he wants to defend, whether it’s the Islamophobia and right-wing extremism espoused by Farage, Orban and Le Pen or the values of solidarity, human dignity, freedom, equality, rule of law and respect for human rights and diversity on which the European Union was founded.

But to answer Vassallo’s loaded question, I would say that as long as people are law abiding, they pose no threat to society, irrespective of their creed, race, sexual orientation, wealth or political allegiances. Therefore, Vassallo must decide whether the majority of Muslims in Malta are law-abiding or whether their presence could have a negative consequence.

Logically, if Muslims are law abiding, as most Maltese people are, there’s no need to be alarmed. But Vassallo stops short of clearly pointing out who is posing a threat to Maltese society.

Taking a wild guess, I would say he was referring to the criminals whom he associates with Islam and whom he wants to deport. But if people are going to be deported because of their illegal actions, then why make a difference between a Maltese or foreign criminal?

The word deportation does not evoke many pleasant memories. There’s no need to go back to the days when Jews were deported from Europe but closer to home, some 14 years ago, the Maltese government forcibly deported 223 people to Eritrea where they were immediately arrested and tortured.

While reminding Vassallo that no human being is illegal, he should courteously explain how he would go about deporting “all those who are here illegally.”

Should we deport people who have been living in Malta for years and uproot them and their families? This would go against the “right to private and family life” as established in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Should we deport people regardless of what will happen to them once they return to their home country? This goes against their most basic human rights and only exposes the inhumanity of the supporters of such draconian measures.

He adds that such deportations “will render our nation safer for all law-abiding citizens.” While we’re at it why not go the whole hog and deport all lawbreakers including Maltese criminals, who by Vassallo’s own admission make up the majority of inmates at the Corradino prisons, since this would make Malta much safer.

This would be impossible one might rightly think, but Vassallo has a solution for that too.

“Deport all those who although here legally have committed a crime and have been sentenced to prison for it and if found to be Maltese citizens withdraw their citizenship if their crime involves violence or is particularly serious.”

There it is, although he doesn’t specify what he means by “particularly serious” crimes, Vassallo also wants to deport people who were granted refugee status or became Maltese citizens. Although this could see people sent back to certain death or becoming stateless, Vassallo has a solution too. I guess the foreigners Vassallo wants to expel include EU citizens, but unfortunately for him and fellow right-wing extremists these cannot be deported because this would be in breach of their freedom of movement.

Finally he accuses me of having a “go with the flow attitude” as opposed to his brave stand against the crusading Muslims who want to impose upon us a backward culture and warped agenda.

When I call for inclusion, this is not a call for misplaced or naive tolerance. When it comes to the challenges and struggles we are faced with, unlike others, I am not selective. I oppose and struggle against discrimination, racism, intolerance, whether this is perpetuated by Wahhabi extremists in Saudi, the US in Guantanamo, Buddhists in Myanmar or ultra-right wing Christians in Malta, Hungary or France.

Unlike Vassallo, I have no hidden agendas and while I expect anyone living in Malta to respect the law and the country’s ways of life, I also expect the State to uphold everybody’s rights irrespective of their nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation and political beliefs. This includes criminals and people awaiting trial in Malta, who unlike in other countries such as feudal Saudi Arabia and apartheid Israel, have a right to a fair trial and humane treatment irrespective of the details on their passport or ID card.