At school,we were taught to read the title and the question carefully, because very often the answers were lurking there somewhere.
At primary and secondary level, when cryptic questions and titles aren't really de rigueur and what you see is more or less what you get, once you grasped the title, you were half way to understanding the rest of the comprehension. It was that simple.
'A Horse With No Name' was about a horse without a name and you weren't going to be in for any surprises and you certainly weren't going to stumble on a pig or a rabbit with an identity crisis or some other arcane profundity.
When I read about the 'Woman who thought she was arrested', who was eventually allowed to leave court a free woman, pursuant to her lawyer filing a habeas corpus application, I was surprised that none of the people who chose to volunteer their insights online picked up on the very salient (and really, only) point of the story worthy of comment, which was encapsulated in the title and cried out for attention.
That a woman actually thought she was arrested didn't seem to let off any alarm bells in their heads. That part was ignored. The only thing which seemed to have captured the imagination and attention of The Times readers was the Filipino's decision to give her baby up for adoption and the online debate deteriorated into a moral one, with one man telling us that if the lady couldn't afford to give her child a good life, she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place.
What a stroke of absolute genius. I really think this gentleman ought to seriously consider giving up his day job, offer his services to Barack Obama or BP, and help solve the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis.
While everyone else was getting het up about contraception, planned parenthood, parental responsibility, abortion (which people in Malta seem incapable of leaving out of any argument), I was trying to get my head around why this woman thought she was arrested in the first place. And I came to the reasoned conclusion that if this lady thought she was arrested, it's probably because she was.
Lara Liezel Asenit, a pregnant Filipino, arrives in Malta in March and goes to live with a Maltese family who is immediately related to the prospective adoptive father. Her visa is in order so there can be no misgivings in that department which might possibly alert immigration police.
On May 19, Asenit, gives birth. One day in June four plain clothes police turn up at where she lives and ask her to accompany them to police headquarters. She is not given a choice. At more or less the same time, the prospective adoptive father is also visited at his residence by no fewer than eight police officers and is also taken in for three hours of questioning. From this point on, nobody sees or hears from Asenit and her whereabouts are kept suitably clandestine, apart from a routine request by the police for some of her clothes to be delivered to the depot, which bears the hallmark and stamp of a text book arrest the world over.
Two days later, when there is still no sign of life from Asenit and she has made no attempt to contact her Maltese host family whose attempts at contacting her and discovering her whereabouts have been equally unsuccessful, the family feel they ought to engage the services of a lawyer in a desperate attempt to locate her. A court application is filed. Less than an hour later, Asenit arrives in court, with her Maxi Cosi and maximum police protection.
I must have read what was reported in The Times 10 times and each time I was struck by the same thought - how does a person, supposedly not under arrest, wind up in court surrounded by police, driven there by the same police, who have also 'picked her up', questioned her at length and then 'handed' her over to Appoġġ and who don't seem to have any imminent plans of releasing her, because let's face it one's 'financial situation' doesn't change overnight.
Asenit was not roaming the streets looking for alms. Her finances were never in issue and she never asked Appoġġ or anyone else for help. When questioned in court, the Police Inspector insisted she was not under arrest but was being kept by Appoġġ because she had no financial means to support herself.
My criminal law lectures on arrest and seizure are still pretty clear in my head and detaining or keeping someone against his will constitutes arrest. If someone is not free to go, he's effectively arrested. Asenit was not given a choice in the matter. She wasn't even allowed to make a call. She was placed in a dodgy home in Valletta, normally reserved for people seeking a safe haven from ugly domestics. Something tells me she might still be there today if that application wasn't filed.
The presiding magistrate, known to be razor sharp and not someone who permits the wool to be pulled over her eyes, cottoned on pretty quick and didn't really buy any of it for a second. Despite all protestations to the contrary, the magistrate saw the need to ask the Central Authority director to cite the law under which the woman was being detained against her will.
I found the whole story scary, if a bit ironic. Police officers feel the need to protect a woman from what they imagine may be a possible coerced adoption and use coercive means to do so.
Now Filipinos may be easy targets because they are generally shrinking violets, naturally apologetic and reclusive. But then, when you're faced with the police you very rarely have a choice. You do what you're told to do, you go where they tell you to go. And until you are shown the door and allowed to leave, you're under arrest even if they tell you otherwise.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com