The police looked on as a Maltese woman spat several times at a black chemical engineer from Hungary then slapped him and told him to “go back to your country”.
Daboma Jack, in Malta for a year to study for his Masters degree, was trying to instil some order in a chaotic queue of about 200 people waiting to register and top up their Tallinja card at the Valletta terminus when he ended up the victim of a racist attack yesterday morning.
By the afternoon, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela had instructed the Police Commissioner to start an internal investigation with immediate effect. The police later confirmed that the internal affairs unit was looking into the matter to establish the facts leading to the reported incident.
In tweets, Archbishop Charles Scicluna condemned the accident, saying it was “truly outrageous” and Opposition leader Simon Busuttil described it as “shameful”.
Mr Jack had been in the bus terminus queue since 10am, together with his wife. After about an hour, when there was no sign of the queue budging, he took the initiative to ask people to form a more practical single file. The frustrated crowd cooperated with him as he attempted to bring about a semblance of order.
Then, at about 11.30am, witnesses told Times of Malta, a Maltese woman, who was in the queue, suddenly confronted Mr Jack and started shouting in his face: “Go back to your country! Go back to your country!” She continued hurling abuse saying he was so ugly no woman would ever want to go next to him. She then spat in his face three times.
Taken aback, Mr Jack immediately reported the incident to the district police, who however, failed to react.
Unfazed, the woman again approached Mr Jack and this time slapped him in the face. At this point, Mr Jack started shouting at the police to take action saying this was a racist attack.
Go back where? We are EU citizens!
Three officers from the police rapid intervention unit arrived on the scene and immediately wrestled an angry Mr Jack to the ground and handcuffed him. He initially resisted, shouting they should be chasing the woman not arresting him. Seeing the commotion, the woman took the opportunity to run away.
The policeman to whom Mr Jack reported the spitting incident and who was present when the woman slapped him, could be seen next to the RIU officers while they were pinning Mr Jack to the ground.
Mr Jack was only released after a television journalist and several other witnesses insisted with the police he was innocent and was not the one who initiated the disorder.
Mr Jack kept asking other officer whether he could report the first policeman who had simply stood by as the woman hurled abuse at him. The police said they would be making a request to watch the footage taken by TVM to be able to trace the woman, who witnesses described as “not old” and “had blonde hair”.
After the police asked Mr Jack and several witnesses for an account of what had happened, a visibly shaken Mr Jack, said: “In no other country would someone have spat at a black man and the police do nothing. This would have been unacceptable in any other EU country.”
His wife, Kelly, who witnessed the whole incident, including the woman’s screeching for them to go back home, told Times of Malta: “Go back where? We are EU citizens!”
Shocked at having witnessed her husband being abused, she said: “This is human rights we’re talking about. The police failed to take action at the crucial time. The slap was not to my husband but to every other black person in the crowd,” she said.
The police would not comment on what steps were being taken to locate the woman and would only say they were still trying to establish exactly what happened.
The NGO Aditus wrote to the police urging them to take action and encouraged people to copy and send this same letter to the police.
In a statement, the Nationalist Party condemned the racist attack and urged the Police Commissioner to conclude the investigations promptly so action could be taken against the guilty party.
Alternattiva Demokratika also deplored the behaviour of the police.