[WATCH] Hate speech threatens to break our country, Archbishop warns

The archbishop said that overseeing the safety and security of one's own country should never justify hate speech and further violence

Archbishop Charles Scicluna
Archbishop Charles Scicluna

In the wake of the Hal Far open centre riots, Archbisop Charles Scicluna warned that hate speech threatens to shatter the country.

"Let's not be the ones to plant seeds of hate that can break us... hate will harm not just the ones at the end of it but us too," he said in a delicate video the Maltese archdiocese posted online.

The Hal Far riots, where a police car and three other open centre employee cars were set alight, were followed by a spate of unrestrained comments on social media that threatened violence towards the migrant community.

A few days later, and in serendipitous synchronicity with the post-riot hate speech, the Hate Speech and Crime Unit was inaugurated at City Gate in Valletta by Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia. 

"The events of these past few days should be an occasion for us Maltese to stop and think about what's happening around us. Nobody is ready to justify violence, irrespective of where it's coming from... we have a right to oversee the safety of our country, but this shouldn't justify hate speech," Scicluna said, adding that if we were to plant a seed, it should be one of peace.

Scicluna recounted the Biblical tale of Saint Paul shipwrecked on the Maltese islands. The Maltese had greeted him, Scicluna said, and he left behind a blessing, a seed that left behind the fruit of Roman Catholicism.