“Three foreigners with a dark skin” are the latest to make the news in Malta following a hit and run incident in Dragonara Road, Paceville. Obviously when the police description hit the press, as it did with the Malta Independent, the comments section becomes a free for all for the “foreigners go out” brigade. We also have a new term “irregular migrants” that seems to have replaced the former blanket term of “illegal immigrants”.
Once again a crime that is deplorable whoever commits it and whoever is the victim has been tainted and coloured with additional news value – as though the dark skin of the perpetrators makes it any worse. You cannot blame the police who issued Malta’s version of a BOLO though it does somewhat fail on the side of vague. Dark skinned? In Malta? With the last vestiges of the hot sun tans not exactly gone yet? Was there nothing else in the description of the perpetrators that might have been signalled? Hoodies maybe? Track suits? As for the TMI running with the headline “three dark skinned men”… surely someone should be asking what is the usefulness of this specification in the title given that this description does not help narrow down the search in any way.
What it does helpto do is fan the flames of the intolerant bunch of ignoramuses who will automatically take to imputing any kind of criminal statistic to the influx of “illegal immigrants”.
So help us God.
