The police have confirmed they are investigating a complaint lodged last Thursday about violent threats made in an anti-immigration Facebook group.
Maria Pisani and Ritianne Ellul had made the complaint about comments under a photo posted of them in the Daqshekk ghall-Immigrazzjoni Llegali f’Malta group.
Throw Muslims off the cliffs of Dover, their kids first
They received e-mail confirmation on Sunday morning that their complaints were being investigated, after a news article on the issue appeared in The Sunday Times of Malta.
The Cyber Crime Unit is “making the necessary technical enquiries into the two reported Facebook accounts... with the hope of identifying the person/s administering them,” the police sergeant assigned to the case said.
The complaints were made against Facebook accounts using the names Nick Schembri and Mark Borg Borg.
Under a photo of NGO representatives that included the complainants, Schembri had wrote that “we should start by f******” their families. Borg Borg replied: “these women deserve to be beaten with rods”.
Ms Pisani and Ms Ellul also complained about posts which referred to shooting all Muslims.
Borg Borg appears to have disabled his account but Schembri seems to be unrepentant, as he has continued to post publicly in the group over the past few days.
On Sunday morning, he wrote that the people of Britain needed to “wake up” and throw Muslims “off the cliffs of Dover, their kids first”.
The Facebook group in question had more than 3,300 members as of yesterday. It describes itself as being non-racist and warns members to ensure their contributions are lawful.
However, active members appear to be ignoring this and posting overtly racist and abusive comments.
Schembri himself posted on Sunday that he was “razzista [racist] and proud”.
Yesterday, after someone posted a link to The Sunday Times of Malta article in the group, one member using the name Prop Olus wrote: “There are not enough lamp posts”, in a clear reference to lynching.
Later yesterday, several group members began to complain that they had received messages from Facebook saying certain posts had been removed because they breached regulations.
But this did not deter a member using the name Michael Cortis MBE, who wrote at 4.48pm: “Kill all NGOs”, in reference to non-governmental organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers.
While racism is not a crime in itself under Maltese law, incitement to violence or racial/religious hatred is according to Article 82A of the Criminal Code. Those found guilty of breaching this are liable to a prison term of between six and 18 months. Articles 249 to 251B, meanwhile, prohibit threats by means of writing, harassment and causing others to fear that violence will be used against them.
Questions sent to the police yesterday about complaints and prosecutions of cases of incitement to racial hatred over the past three years are still being processed.