Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1481540
OPINION 12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 12 OCTOBER 2022 IN case you were wondering, that head- line – minus the 'surprising' part, which I added myself – was lifted from Home Af- fairs Minister Byron Camilleri's reaction, in Parliament this week, to the news that three police officers have been arrested for 'racially-motivated brutality'. That, at least, is how the alleged crimes have been abbreviated, for the purpose of actually describing them in a news article. Truth be told, however, it is a little difficult to condense the sheer scale of the brutality involved, to just a couple of words. A more complete description would have to specify that the three police of- ficers are also alleged to have picked their victims up off the street – themselves described as 'foreign nationals'; though it would more accurate to say 'undocu- mented asylum seekers from Africa' – then driven them to a remote location somewhere in Qormi, where they alleg- edly proceeded to inflict 'grievous bodily harm' (apparently, using a 'pointed in- strument'…) only to simply drive off and abandon them there, for dead. Now: leaving aside that it unnervingly reminds me of that notorious 'ear-slicing' incident, from Reservoir Dogs (the movie that earned Quentin Tarantino his original reputation as a 'director of outrageous- ly violent films'; and which was banned in certain countries, specifically for that one scene)… even a cursory glance at the charge sheet suggests that what those three police officers stand accused of, amounts to far more than just 'racially-motivated bru- tality'. From a purely legal perspective, the full list would also have to include: "kidnap- ping, abuse of authority, illegal arrest, hold- ing a person against his will, two counts of attempted grievous bodily harm and two counts of causing slight injury… [with] the bodily harm charges being aggravated by their racial motives." [Note: and though I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, we could also add: 'Committing a crime that, as police officers, they were duty-bound to prevent.'] But from the perspective of how the rest of the country must be looking at the same situation, right now – and bearing in mind that 22% of Malta's population is now composed of 'foreign nationals': many of them failed African asylum seekers (who are probably wondering whether, or when, 'their turn will come next')… I don't know. Suddenly, it seems as if those two hapless African victims may not have been not the only casualties of this crime. Indeed, it may even be that the Mal- ta Police Force itself has actually suffered quite a lot of 'grievous' harm, too… not of the 'bodily' variety, perhaps; but certainly, in terms of loss of public trust. Naturally, this brings us right back to By- ron Camilleri's reaction: not just because he happens to be the minister responsible for the Malta Police Force (and therefore, by definition, also responsible for addressing any 'loss of trust' issues that might arise…) … but also, because – on paper, at least – his response indicates that he has under- stood the overall implications quite well. "The alleged incidents are unacceptable," he told us, "not only because they allegedly took place from within the police, but are also disgusting for our own humanity". And while that might, admittedly, be just a meaningless, pre-rehearsed sound-bite – to the extent that he repeated it word- for-word, when replying to journalists' questions the next day - Camilleri also ac- knowledged (more importantly) that: "the alleged behaviour was even more infuriat- ing for officers who have managed to build public trust through constant hard work. That trust could have been dented after these allegations…" But while those two quotes adequate- ly explain why Byron Camilleri is (quite rightly) feeling 'disgusted' and 'infuriated', at the moment… it's a little harder to com- prehend why he would also express 'disap- pointment', in the same breath. For one thing, because the word 'disap- pointment' presumes that Byron Camilleri must have had higher expectations of po- lice behaviour, than what this case actual- ly implies… and for another, because – as the minister responsible for (among other things) implementing that part of govern- ment's integration policy, that is relevant to the Police Force itself - he has, quite frank- ly, done nothing at all to justify any such 'expectation', in the two whole years he has occupied that ministry. Indeed, there are even specific areas of government policy – implemented (and de- fended) by none other than Byron Camill- eri himself – that should legitimately raise 'expectations' of the very opposite kind. Take, for instance, his own observation that: "trust [in the police] could have been dented after these allegations". Is it really just 'after these allegations', that entire sec- tions of the population (you'll never guess which) have been given very good reason to 'mistrust' the Maltese police? Reason I ask is that these allegations – 'disgusting' and 'infuriating' though they undeniably are – only surfaced just a cou- ple of days ago. Yet there is plenty of evi- dence (mostly in the form of surveys pub- lished in this newspaper) that the erosion of public trust actually began a LOT earlier than that. And besides: this is not even the first time, in the past few weeks, that the Maltese police have been publicly portrayed as 'a Force to be mistrusted', by the local (mostly African) migrant community. Tell you what: let's rewind a couple of days, to immediately before these allega- tions even emerged. What sort of 'events' (for want of a better word) were we wit- nessing, each and every day of the week, that dramatically reinforced the public per- ception of African migrants as 'criminals'… 'miscreants'… 'trouble-makers', etc? Why, a 'police-crackdown on undocu- mented asylum seekers', of course: pre- sented to us for all the world as though it were actually a military crack-down, on a newly-discovered 'rebel base'… The upshot? There wasn't a single day, in the past week or so, when TVM's eight o clock news did not show extensive footage of African people being rounded up in the streets, then loaded in handcuffs onto po- lice vans, to be driven off for deportation… And OK: I am the first to admit that this operation cannot conceivably be com- pared, in any direct way, to the heinous crimes with which those three officers have been charged. (If nothing else, because – unlike 'kidnapping and torture' - 'deport- ing undocumented migrants' DOES actu- ally fall within the remit of legitimate police behaviour, everywhere in the democratic world.) All the same, however: it cannot escape notice, that this crack-down occurred so soon after that viral video of a Hamrun street-brawl, between (Syrian, in this case) immigrants… and that the arrests them- selves (not to mention the media-spec- tacle they were turned into, by the State broadcaster) were clearly intended more to assuage popular demands for a 'purge of foreigners'… than to actually address the issue of criminality, on the streets of ethically-diverse localities. (Otherwise, the police would surely have clamped down on 'real' crime: instead of only on minor mis- demeanours such as 'overstaying one's Visa restrictions'…) And besides: what sort of expectation does Byron Camilleri think that sort of government policy might raise… among the police, for instance: who – let's face it – would not be entirely unjustified, in con- cluding that their job really was to 'clean this island of unwanted foreigners (a little like 'Comtec', now that I think about it; on- ly with 'African migrants', instead of 'rats and cockroaches…')? … or how about among the local African migrant community, in general? After all, some (if not all) of them will presumably be watching all those news bulletins, too. Which also means that – just like every- body else – they're also receiving their dai- ly injection of the same State propaganda, which does nothing but portray their own kind as 'criminals'; and the Maltese police as a 'Force' which fully intends to 'wipe them all out'… What, I wonder, does Byron Camilleri imagine those people's 'expectations of po- lice behaviour', to actually be like? And that's just sticking to the past week alone. What if we extended our gaze even further back in time… only to arrive at a point when it was (quite literally) the gov- ernment's own official policy, to 'kidnap' African asylum seekers; and to 'abuse its authority', by 'holding them against their will' in 'remote, uninhabited locations'… such as, for instance, "in the middle of the sea, on board pleasure cruisers converted into floating detention centres'? Well, that's what happened in 2020, you know (by an interesting coincidence, the same year when Byron Camilleri himself was appointed Home Affairs Minister). And this time round, it would be far less of an exaggeration, to make direct compari- sons with the 'racially-motivated brutality' we're all talking about today. For even though – as far as any of us can tell, anyway – none of those 200+ immi- grants was ever 'assaulted with pointed in- struments', at any point of their lengthy de- tention on board those detention vessels… they were all certainly 'abducted'; and they were all certainly detained, in conditions that can only be described as 'unacceptable' (if not, tantamount to 'torture and degrad- ing treatment', as defined by the CPT)… and I imagine several of them would have suffered serious psychological trauma, as a consequence. The only difference, of course, was that Byron Camilleri did not exactly describe his own policies as 'disgusting, disappoint- ing, and infuriating', at the time. And to this day, he probably still doesn't realise that this, too, has contributed to the same overall 'erosion of trust', that he himself now expresses concern about. It is after all, a little difficult to expect any- thing better from the Malta Police Force… when the Maltese government not only condones 'racially-motivated brutality'; but actively engages in it, itself. Just saying, that's all… 'Disgusting, disappointing, infuriating'… but not 'surprising' Raphael Vassallo