Xenophobia appears to be a far greater issue than homophobia in the Maltese context, according to a two-year university study.

The study carried out within the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology at the University of Malta confirmed that hate speech and hate crime are often not seen as a serious offence and are significantly under-reported.

There is also a widespread tendency to confound religion with ethnicity, with instances of both Christians being categorised as Muslims because of their skin colour and Muslims being categorised as Arab/African by virtue of their faith alone

“In the local context, the issue has become increasingly relevant, as the influx of irregular migrants, the recent legalisation of civil unions and the new Gender Identity Bill seem to have affected the problems of hate speech and hate crime targeted at particular minority groups on the Maltese islands,” the study concluded.

The project analysed newspaper comment sections which showed that xenophobic speech occurs at a much higher frequency and to a much harsher degree than homophobic speech.

Xenophobic sentiments appear to arouse racist, Islamaphobic, and anti-migrant discourse, which tightly correspond to attitudes of nationalism, patriotism, and fear and that provoke strong emotional responses.

“What is particularly notable, in view of our analysis of online comments as well as the discussions that arose during the focus group interviews, is that there is also a widespread tendency to confound religion with ethnicity, with instances of both Christians being categorised as Muslims because of their skin colour and Muslims being categorised as Arab/African by virtue of their faith alone.

“This local prevalence of xenophobia in comparison to homophobia can also be discerned in the existence of far more discriminatory comments pertaining to migrants than members of the LGBTIQ community in our sample analysis, as well as in the tendency of our survey participants to find xenophobic remarks more acceptable than homophobic remarks that are commonly marked as completely unacceptable.”

The so-called Contact project spanned 10 countries: Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Spain, UK. Malta was the only country in which positive comments in relation to LGBTIQ issues outnumbered negative ones.

Analysis of discrimination/hate speech

The researchers were intrigued to find that the instances in which a positive attitude towards the LGBTIQ group was expressed – most of which were reactions to a negative comment put forth by someone else – outnumber the corresponding negative comments.

“It is worth noting that Malta is the only country in the Contact consortium to obtain this result, as all other national datasets revealed a more pronounced negative attitude towards both minority groups.

“Yet, the results regarding xenophobia in Malta seem particularly grave, as the negative comments are almost double in number than those that defend this particular target group.

The recommendations called for more understanding of the emergence of discriminatory attitudes, “so that social crises or one-off events do not automatically trigger intolerance”.

“Most importantly, it is crucial for the public to develop an awareness on matters of discrimination. This can be achieved though: dedicated far-reaching awareness-raising events, a more responsible approach to the relevant issues by the media and the establishment of an agenda that promotes inclusion and tolerance at all levels of education and the workplace.

Type of hate crime/speech

“Clearly, however, the biggest responsibility for combatting hate speech lies with those who have a direct effect on public perception. On the one hand, it seems particularly crucial to understand the underlying reasons for the emergence of such speech and develop policies (and in some cases even attitudes) that will alleviate sources of apprehension in the public. On the other, it is also essential that the public develops an awareness on matters of discrimination, be it through wider-reaching awareness-raising events – perhaps with the collaboration of the media, or the establishment of an agenda that promotes inclusion and tolerance at all levels of education and later on in the workplace.

• As of October 2017, out of the 112 reports on hate speech, the largest proportion had to do with instances of verbal abuse.

• Negative remarks about migrants were also found in the LGBTIQ content, which appears to suggest that in some cases xenophobia has a way of entering the picture even in seemingly irrelevant discussions.

• Questionnaire participants reported witnessing incidents of insults and threats mostly online (83.3%), in the street (72.7%) and on public transport (59.3%).