Something is not quite right in the Auberge d’Aragon. Faced with disturbing allegations of abuse of police power in recent days and weeks, the Justice Ministry’s reaction (or lack thereof) has been surprising, to say the least.
Last Wednesday, this newspaper revealed details of how an 18-year-old woman was asked not to report serious allegations of police misconduct to the Police Headquarters in Floriana. The girl’s story, published in full last Sunday, involves absurdly disproportionate levels of verbal and physical aggression, perpetrated by no fewer than four police officers (three male and one female), over a misdemeanour as tiny and insignificant as taking a small dog to the beach.
Nor was this an isolated incident: in fact, it followed hard on the heels of another, even more violent episode in which a 21-year-old man claims to have been severely beaten in custody at the same St Julian’s station.
It seems, then, that we are dealing with the unpleasant (and very visible) consequences of an administrative policy to treat the police precinct at Malta’s major nightlife Mecca – with all its associated crime problems – as some sort of “demotion” for badly-behaved policemen. If this is the case, it is a mentality that must be reserved as soon as possible, before any more serious damage is done.
But back to the woman’s allegations of harassment. Most people would not be aware that taking one’s dog to the beach now constitutes a criminal offence, so her incredulous reaction, when reported to the police by a Malta Tourism Authority warden, is for this reason entirely understandable.
The police’s behaviour, on the other hand, is a little harder to interpret. Allowing the benefit of doubt regarding the alleged harassment itself: even the simple fact – not denied to date by police sources – that no fewer than four police officers were despatched to the scene should itself raise serious questions about the police’s priorities.
Compare the police’s reaction on this occasion to the remarkable story, aired in another newspaper last Sunday, in which the police were accused of ignoring altogether a report of vandalism of private property, involving a blatantly homophobic message spray-panted onto the walls of a person’s living room.
The difference in attitude is too glaring to ignore. Since when has walking one’s dog on the beach been considered more serious a crime than a wilful break-in, complete with damage to property, and what can only be interpreted as a direct threat of physical violence to the owner? How can the police justify deploying four officers in the former case, and none at all in the latter?
These are not rhetorical questions, and someone, somewhere ought to be able to answer them. And yet, questions sent to both the police’s community and media relations unit (CMRU) and the Justice Ministry have to date been unanswered, or best fobbed off with grossly unsatisfactory replies.
In the case of the CMRU, we can even add wholesale deceit to the list of offences. Having failed to take any action whatsoever with regard to a report, filed with Superindent Sharon Tanti shortly after the June 12 incident, the CMRU even had the temerity to issue a statement claiming that no report was ever received, and that no investigation was under way.
Both statements are demonstrably false, raising serious questions about the police force’s credibility as a whole. In fact, the same CMRU later had to sheepishly withdraw its claims, when it became apparent that the young woman in question was not going to allow herself to be intimidated by police pressure.
But while her own report was ignored entirely, the police chose to proceed with criminal action against the alleged victim herself; and even then, over “crimes” which can only be described as laughable.
In a pattern of behaviour common to many instances when the police are accused of wrongdoing, it is the victim, and not the alleged perpetrators, to find herself criminalised by the forces of law and order. And to add insult to injury, the court summons itself was significantly issued on the selfsame Sunday (23 August) when the allegations were published by this newspaper, raising suspicions of retaliation.
Considering the gravity of the accusations levelled at the police by the victim of this occasion, this is not an acceptable outcome by any stretch of the imagination. Far from it. And yet, despite all the sinister implications, Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici has to date nonchalantly shrugged off all our questions about this incident, for all the world as though the Home Affairs Minister does not consider the behaviour and credibility of the Malta Police Force to be part of his portfolio at all.
If this is the case, Mifsud Bonnici is mistaken. The responsibility for the above state of affairs is his, directly his, and only his. The sooner he is made to understand this, the safer this country will become.
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