The immigration problem

The Times exceeded its editorial licence in headlining an article Foreigners Not Welcome (December 1). By no stretch of the imagination could the brief article and its accompanying photograph showing the entrance to a business establishment in Paola, with several slogans on display, be construed as "anti-foreigner".

Since Malta welcomes foreigners of diverse ethnicity who are bona-fide visitors, and since the business owner was quoted that he also does so, then one can only speculate as to who the "foreigners" really are that The Times is referring to in the article. Were it not for the free publicity accorded his establishment, perhaps, the owner may well have been justified in suing The Times for libel.

This Times article (and its follow-up on December 2) provided a considerable amount of free publicity for the establishment in question. It also spawned a heated debate on freedom of expression among bloggers while bleeding-heart liberals took the bait and read a sinister mix of racism and xenophobia in the posted slogans.

They were quick to label the messages as inciting anti-illegal immigrant sentiment. All of this will provide fodder for the vitriol that issues forth from the pen of that arch-apologist for failed government illegal immigration policies, I.M. Beck.