Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes: National report for Malta.

Xenophobic and Homophobic Attitudes National report for Malta Stavros Assimakopoulos & Rebecca Vella Muskat Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology L-Università ta’ Malta Xenophobic and homophobic* attitudes National report for Malta Stavros Assimakopoulos & Rebecca Vella Muskat October 2017 * The term homophobia is used throughout this report as an umbrella term to include any phobia involving the LGBTIQ community, including, but not limited to, homophobia, lesbophobia, transphobia, biphobia, and sexism. © L-Università ta’ Malta, 2017  This work is licensed under a"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Contents Executive summary 2 .......................................................................... Key findings 2 ................................................................................................ Recommendations 3 ..................................................................................... Background to the research 4 ............................................................. Initiatives pre-C.O.N.T.A.C.T. 9 .................................................................. The C.O.N.T.A.C.T. research 12 ........................................................ Analysing online comments in the Maltese press 13 .................................... Trends in relation to xenophobia in Malta 19 ........................................................... Trends in relation to homophobia in Malta 21 .......................................................... Approximating the general public’s perception 22 ....................................... Evaluation of comments 23 ...................................................................................... Experiences of hate speech incidents 26 .................................................................. Reporting hate speech incidents 31 .......................................................................... Definitions of hate speech 33 .................................................................................... Comments evaluations 36 .......................................................................................... Definitions of hate speech and hate speech laws 41 ................................................. Experiences with hate speech 42 .............................................................................. Conclusion 45...................................................................................... ! ! 1 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Executive summary Key findings •Hate speech is a vastly understudied phenomenon, especially in Malta. •Xenophobia seems to be a far greater issue than homophobia locally: ✴Most of the reports we received on our website were linked to ethnic origin and religion. ✴The negative comments in reaction to media discourse about migrants were almost double in number than positive ones in our analysis. ✴In the administered questionnaire, there was considerably more consensus among respondents regarding the non-acceptability of insults and threats targeted at gender and sexual minorities rather than national, religious, and racial minorities. •Malta was the sole country across the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. consortium in which positive comments in relation to LGBTIQ issues outnumbered negative ones. ! ! 2 The present report summarises research carried out at the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology of the University of Malta under the auspices of the EU co-funded C.O.N.T.A.C.T. project. Our study, which followed the common methodology of the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. consortium, focused on hate speech as a manifestation of hate crime in Malta. More specifically, through quantitative and qualitative analyses, we sought to identify the extent to which comments posted online in reaction to articles in local news portals can be found to encompass discriminatory attitudes towards two target minorities: migrants and members of the LGBTIQ community. The obtained results indicate that while both xenophobia and homophobia can be detected in some of the comments made by online users in local news portals, the former is a much more prevalent than the latter. In an attempt to further probe into the reasons for the emergence of such discriminatory discourse online, we then administered an online questionnaire and conducted focus group interviews, which provided us with some insights as to why discriminatory attitudes appear to have recently been on the rise in relation to migrants, and seem to have been correspondingly contained in the case of the LGBTIQ minority group. ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat ✴Our focus group interview participants suggested that people are more accepting of LGBTIQ members because they are perceived to be part of the in-group, i.e. locals. •Some main reasons for the underreporting of hate speech incidents, as these were identified by our questionnaire respondents were: ✴Lack of awareness as to how such incidents can be reported ✴Lack of confidence in the ability of the relevant authorities to combat something that is perceived to be a common occurrence. Recommendations •In order to tackle hate speech, further research on the different forms that it can take, both online and offline, is needed. A dedicated repository of records of the relevant incidents would be very useful in this respect. •It would also be useful to assess the underlying reasons for the emergence of discriminatory attitudes and plan ahead, so that social crises or one-off events do not automatically trigger intolerance. •Most importantly, it is crucial for the general 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 ✴the establishment of an agenda that promotes inclusion and tolerance at all levels of education and the workplace.! ! ! 3 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Chapter 1 Background to the research When one speaks of discrimination in its broadest sense, one refers to prejudice based on any minority identity, be it religion, nationality, race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. This is what is commonly called a protected characteristic in legal terminology pertaining to hate speech and hate crime. However, regardless of whether an incident is prosecutable or not under the law, the underlying idea is that some person is discriminated against when s/he is singled out - and potentially insulted or even threatened - not because of some personal trait (like the length of his/her hair), but rather because s/he shares some identifying characteristic with other members of a particular group, be it social, national, political and so on. As is evident in the following provisions, both the Constitution of Malta and the Maltese Criminal Code directly outlaw any form of discrimination (with the Press Act, the Broadcasting Act and the Employment and Industrial Relations Act also comprising further provisions in relation to it). ! ! 4 Photo by Carlos Smith [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0], via Flickr ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat In our communication with them, the People for Change Foundation noted that the hate crime provisions in the Maltese criminal code have come a long way. The code includes both a specific provision against hate speech and hate motivation (including race, religion, etc.) as aggravating circumstances for all offences. However, the wording of these provisions is somewhat clumsy in that all grounds for hatred are enumerated under the term 'racial hatred'. Even though the Maltese Criminal Code also gives mention to discrimination specifically in the form of “any threatening, abusive or insulting words”, no concrete definition of what constitutes - or does not constitute, for that matter - hate speech actually exists. 1 For a more detailed discussion of the elusive nature of the notion of hate speech see: Assimakopoulos, Stavros, 1 Fabienne H. Baider and Sharon Millar. In press. Online hate speech in the EU: A discourse-analytic perspective, Chapter 1. Berlin: Springer. ! ! 5 Maltese Criminal Code - Article 82 (1) Whosoever uses any threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written or printed material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, or otherwise conducts himself in such a manner, with intent thereby to stir up violence or racial hatred against another person or group on the grounds of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, colour, language, ethnic origin, religion or belief or political or other opinion or whereby such violence or racial hatred is likely, having regard to all the circumstances, to be stirred up shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for a term from six to eighteen months. (2) For the purposes of the foregoing subarticle "violence or racial hatred" means violence or racial hatred against a person or against a group of persons in Malta defined by reference to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, colour, language, national or ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or belief or political or other opinion Constitution of Malta - Article 45 (1) Subject to the provisions of sub-articles (4), (5) and (7) of this article, no law shall make any provision that is discriminatory either of itself or in its effect. (2) Subject to the provisions of sub-articles (6), (7) and (8) of this article, no person shall be treated in a discriminatory manner by any person acting by virtue of any written law or in the performance of the functions of any public office or any public authority. (3) In this article, the expression "discriminatory" means affording different treatment to different persons attributable wholly or mainly to their respective descriptions by race, place of origin, political opinions, colour, creed, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity whereby persons of one such description are subjected to disabilities or restrictions to which persons of another such description are not made subject or are accorded privileges or advantages which are not accorded to persons of another such description. ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Still, what remains missing is an adequate body of judicial interpretation of the relevant legal provisions to identify their boundaries in practice. Most interpretations that have become available in the past few years are based on cases involving (sometimes alleged) manifestations of hate on the basis of racial discrimination alone. In relation to discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, against which the legal amendments to the Constitution of Malta and Criminal Code were only put into force in 2013, it is still very early to speak of actual case studies in which homophobic hate or discrimination was prosecuted. For example, in 2012, two young lesbians were attacked in a park , in an event that part-triggered the legislative 2 changes that were eventually introduced , but it was then too late for their attack to be 3 prosecuted as a hate crime. Perhaps, the most successful case against hate speech to date is the case of Norman Lowell, Malta’s resident far right, ultranationalist politician, who was convicted with inciting racial hatred in 2008 (racial hatred was already criminalised in 2008) . Then, in 2016, 4 two youths were also convicted for propagating hate speech and were each fined €3,000 for racist comments they posted on Facebook . 5 Even so, hate speech can be very difficult to prosecute. Norman Lowell speaks from a podium; a setting that makes it easy to observe instances of hate speech to begin with. Reporting hate speech that occurs in a person’s home or work place might not be as straightforward. Also, there exist no specific procedures for prosecuting and reporting hate crimes or hate speech. According to the police inspector that we spoke to, all instances of such behaviour should be reported at a police station and are recorded by the police like any other crime. It is then up to the judicial system to prosecute the crime at hand as a hate crime. And even though the judicial system clearly does not actively discriminate against minority groups, the bureaucracy involved in court proceedings makes the process of prosecuting hate speech unduly painful and time-consuming. This is possibly another factor affecting the serious concern of underreporting hate speech/ crime in Malta. Beyond the legal definitions of hate speech and discrimination, community perceptions are also quite complex, especially regarding the LGBTIQ community, as the MGRM (Malta LGBTIQ Rights Movement) pointed out in our communication with them. Before the amendments to the Constitution and Criminal Code in 2013, when the Civil Union Act was ratified, society’s perception of the LGBTIQ community was ahead of legislation; there was more tolerance from society than was reflected in policy. Now, however, the converse seems to be the case; policy is quite ahead in terms of LGBTIQ rights and protections, but people need time to catch up. There has been some backlash because these legislative changes appear, from outside the LGBTIQ community, to have happened very fast. Moreover, certain events spark further backlash. For example, discussions of the Embryo Protection Act to include provisions for single women and lesbians have spurred controversy and hate speech, as has the prospect of introducing LGBTIQ books into schools. It is also apparent that some issues engender more http://preview.tinyurl.com/yc6kna532 http://preview.tinyurl.com/y8zydvy73 http://preview.tinyurl.com/yawe33hx4 http://preview.tinyurl.com/yc86hsw85 ! ! 6 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Even though the common methodology used across the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. consortium, and its underlying rationale, will soon be available in the forthcoming open access publication for the project (Assimakopoulos et al. in press: Chapter 2) , in the following sections, we will swiftly go 12 over the steps we followed for each strand of our research, while discussing the results we obtained through it. Before we go on to it though, it is essential to point out that, while the focus of the project is hate speech, we are in no position, as linguists, to accuse particular commentators that they have committed what amounts to a crime in the eyes of the Maltese law. So, all the statistics and especially the examples provided in what follows should not be perceived as constituting hate speech in the legal sense of the term. Rather, they are emphatically meant to represent instances of discourse that encompasses a discriminatory attitude towards migrants or members of the LGBTIQ community, and which provide an idea of the axiological values that underlie this attitude and can prospectively lead locals to engage in hate speech or even hate crime, by slowly legitimising them. As Waldron (2012: 4) puts it, 13 [the] sense of security in the space we all inhabit is a public good, and in a good society it is something that we all contribute to and help sustain in an instinctive and almost unnoticeable way. Hate speech undermines this public good, or it makes the task of sustaining it much more difficult than it would otherwise be. It does this not only by intimating discrimination and violence, but by reawakening living nightmares of what this society was like – or what other societies have been like – in the past. In doing so, it creates something like and environmental threat to social peace, a sort of slow-acting poison, accumulating here and there, word by word, so that eventually it becomes harder and less natural for even the good-hearted members of the society to play their part in maintaining this public good. Analysing online comments in the Maltese press In order to build our corpora for analysis, we needed to identify articles pertinent to the migrant and LGBTIQ minorities that would have triggered readers to post comments underneath them. To this end, we identified particular keywords, such as ‘refugee’, ‘immigration’, ‘gay’ ‘homosexual’, that are bound to be included in articles pertaining to the minorities under question. The following table shows all keywords that were used to identify articles for the Maltese dataset: Assimakopoulos, Stavros, Fabienne H. Baider and Sharon Millar. In press. Online hate speech in the EU: A 12 discourse-analytic perspective. Berlin: Springer. Waldron, Jeremy. 2012. The harm in hate speech. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.13 ! ! 13 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat We then used the EMM NewsBrief platform, which has been developed by the Joint Research 14 Centre of the European Commission to monitor news reports across the globe, to identify articles from local media portals by doing searches on the basis of our selected keywords. We collected the titles and urls for all retrieved articles, in both English and Maltese, over two temporal periods, which were preselected across the consortium for reasons of feasibility: April - June 2015 and December 2015 - February 2016. Once we retrieved all articles for each keyword, we selected the keywords that would be used for the population of our actual corpora on the basis of the number of articles that each keyword returned during the EMM NewsBrief search. While the rest of the consortium populated their Domain Keywords used to identify relevant articles Hate speech/crime IN ENGLISH: discrimination, hate, hate crime, hate crimes, hate speech IN MALTESE: diskriminazzjoni, mibegħda, reat ta' mibegħda, reati ta' mibegħda, diskors ta' mibegħda Migration IN ENGLISH: asylum, asylum seeker, asylum seekers, black, blacks, immigrant, immigrants, immigration, migrant, migrants, Muslim, Muslims, push-back, pushback, race, racial, racism, refugee, refugees, shelter, xenophobia IN MALTESE: ażil, azil, persuna li tfittex il-kenn, persuni li jfittxu ilkenn, iswed, l-iswed, immigrant, immigranti, immigrazzjoni, migrant, migranti, Musulman, Musulmani, push-back, pushback, razza, razziali, razziżmu, refuġjat, refugjat, refuġjati, refugjati, kenn, ksenofobija LGBTIQ IN ENGLISH: civil union, gay, gays, gender identity, homophobia, homosexual, homosexuals, lesbian, lesbians, LGBT, LGBTIQ, queer, queers, sexuality, sexual orientation, trans, transgender, transgenders, transexual, transexuals IN MALTESE: unjoni ċivili, unjoni civili, gay, gays, identità talġeneru, identita tal-generu, omofobija, omosesswali, liżbjana, lesbjana, liżbjani, lesbjani, LGBT, LGBTIQ, queer, queers, sesswalità, orjentazzjoni sesswali, trans, transgender, transgenders, transesswali http://emm.newsbrief.eu14 ! ! 14 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat corpora with content pertaining to 8 keywords on migration and 6 on LGBTIQ matters, we chose to create a more balanced corpus by using the 8 keywords with most articles for each domain. In the following table, you can see the overall number of hits of the keywords selected, which were of course the keywords with the most number of hits across the board. Even from the number of hits alone, one can easily see that media discourse related to the topic of migration is far more prominent than that related to the LGBTIQ matters, with the keyword registering the highest number of hits in the LGBTIQ category returning less hits than the keyword that was last in our selected list for the Migration domain. Once the 8 keywords per topic area were selected, we went back to our list of articles and discarded all article titles that did not contain any of the selected keywords. Since the EMM Newsbrief tool does not provide any information about articles with associated comments, we used our list of the remaining article urls, and completed it by taking note of the number of comments that each one of these articles had received. In the end of this process, we had a list of all the articles with comments over the designated temporal period, along with the number of comments each article had received. At that stage, we were ready to start compiling our corpus. Again for reasons of feasibility, we had to select a representative and balanced sample of our collected data for further analysis. As per the agreed C.O.N.T.A.C.T. methodology, we did by collecting the first 5,000 words worth of article content from different news portals and an Domain Keyword Sources in English Sources in Maltese Total number of hits Migrants migrant/s 2227 35 2262 refugee/s 1116 241 1357 immigrant/s 334 811 1145 asylum (seeker/s) 424 0 1100 Muslim/s 776 176 952 immigration 485 403 888 race 826 58 884 black/s 745 111 856 LGBTIQ gay/s 322 51 373 LGBT / LGBTIQ 123 33 156 homosexual/s 98 54 152 sexual orientation 71 55 126 gender identity 116 2 118 transgender/s 70 12 82 homophobia 20 53 73 lesbian/s 58 5 63 ! ! 15 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat associated 5,000 words worth of comments content per keyword, on the basis of the number of comments received per article. Obviously, we had to further select our sample of comments per article too, so as to include comments from all the articles selected in the corpus. So, depending on the number of articles per keyword, we also harmonised our comments database, by including in it a balanced number of comments per article, starting from the oldest comments posted first. Here is some information about the two corpora eventually compiled for Malta for this stream of the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. research strand: Overview of C.O.N.T.A.C.T. Migration corpus (Malta) Article source language Keyword No of articles Size of article corpus (in words) No of comments Size of comments corpus (in words) English asylum seeker/s 16 4800 147 5108 black/s 7 5264 137 5096 immigrant/s 7 4877 147 5064 immigration 10 4853 130 5252 migrant/s 11 5073 156 5257 Muslim/s 13 5246 169 5009 race 5 4877 141 4961 refugee/s 9 4809 103 5273 TOTAL 78 39799 1130 41020 Maltese ażil & kenn 3 887 1 10 iswed/l-iswed 0 0 0 0 immigrant/i 19 5216 114 3125 immigrazzjoni 11 3818 44 920 migrant/i 0 0 0 0 Musulman/i 12 2572 55 1629 razza 1 354 1 12 refuġjat/i 8 2466 25 1033 TOTAL 54 15313 240 6729 ! ! 16 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Results of the comments analysis The next step of our research involved the annotation of both our articles and comments corpora in the two domains in terms of polarity . The objective here was to identify whether 15 As one can see in the tables above, our search in sources in Maltese did not yield enough articles with comments, 15 so, even though we did also analyse articles written in Maltese and their associated comments for the purposes of our research, we will not include in the discussion that follows, as it would jeopardise the comparability of our results in the two domains. ! ! 17 Overview of C.O.N.T.A.C.T. LGBTIQ corpus (Malta) Article source language Keyword No of articles Size of article corpus (in words) No of comments Size of comments corpus (in words) English gay/s 14 5070 142 5051 gender identity 8 4960 163 5012 homophobia 9 5100 133 5176 homosexual/s 9 5843 169 5120 lesbian/s 13 5688 116 5008 LGBT/IQ 10 5260 136 5021 sexual orientation 7 4737 114 5268 transgender/s 10 5615 136 5268 TOTAL 80 42273 1109 40924 Maltese gay/s 5 961 21 520 identità tal-ġeneru 0 0 0 0 omofobija 0 0 0 0 omosesswali 5 1237 14 356 liżbjana/i 0 0 0 0 LGBT/IQ 0 0 0 0 orjentazzjoni sesswali 0 0 0 0 transgender/s 0 0 0 0 TOTAL 10 2198 35 876 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat each article/comment communicated a positive, negative or neutral stance towards the minorities under question. What is particularly important to note of course is that during this evaluation, which was undertaken by two members of our team to ensure reliability, we focused exclusively on the attitudes expressed in relation to migrants and members of the LGBTIQ community, marking any content that related to a different target, such as politicians or other commentators, as irrelevant. So, while our analysis of the articles revealed a predominantly neutral attitude towards the minorities under question, our analysis of the comments posted underneath these articles paint a rather different picture, as the pie charts below indicate: In view of our annotation results, it is clear that while there is a presence of a negative attitude towards both minorities that we are dealing with, this attitude is far more prevalent in the case of migrants than it is in that of members of the LGBTIQ community. What is particularly interesting, however, is that the instances in which a positive attitude towards the LGBTIQ group was expressed - most of which were actually reactions to some negative comment put forth by another commentator - outnumber the corresponding negative comments. It is worth noting that Malta is the only country in the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. consortium to obtain this result, as all other national datasets revealed a more pronounced negative attitude towards both minority groups (cf. Assimakopoulos et al. in press: Section 1.4) . Yet, the results regarding xenophobia 16 in Malta seem particularly grave, as the negative comments are almost double in number than those that defend this particular target group. Additionally, more negative remarks about migrants, which we have not taken into account here due to our methodological constraints, were also found in the LGBTIQ corpus, which appears to suggest that in some cases xenophobia has a way of entering the picture even in seemingly irrelevant discussions. Assimakopoulos, Stavros, Fabienne H. Baider and Sharon Millar. In press. Online hate speech in the EU: A 16 discourse-analytic perspective, Chapter 1. Berlin: Springer. ! ! 18 Migration Corpus Neutral / Irrelevant 51.4% Negative 32.3% Positive 16.3% LGBTIQ Corpus Neutral / Irrelevant 57.1% Negative 18.7% Positive 24.2% ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat With this in mind, we will now turn to provide some representative examples of the most notable trends that we came across in our comments analysis. Trends in relation to xenophobia in Malta To begin with, it is worth pointing out that most of the comments that revealed a xenophobic stance had to do with a particular group of migrants, that group comprising predominantly migrants of a Muslim persuasion, rather than with migration as a phenomenon on the whole. The following examples showcase this distinction, while expressing a view that generalises over the relevant population: Even within the group of Muslim migrants, most negative comments target specifically those migrants who have not been granted legal residence status in Malta, irrespective of whether they are entitled to it under refugee provisions. This group is commonly referred to as “illegal immigrants” in our comments corpus, and the following examples illustrate the conception of 17 this group as an out-group that is in complete opposition with the in-group, substantiating to some extent the processes of ‘Othering’ that, as we already mentioned in the previous chapter, have already been pointed out in research conducted by the People for Change Foundation: As Dr Ahmed Bugre noted in his presentation during the University of Malta workshop on hate speech and hate 17 crime that took place in September 2017, the phrase ‘illegal immigrants’ is strictly speaking a misnomer, since Maltese Law only refers to the notions of illegal entry and illegal stay; hence the placement of the phrase in inverted commas here. ! ! 19 Othering irregular migrants …Wait another 5 years and see how these Muslims will change Malta… …Turning a blind eye until such time as there are thousands around and the government has to raise taxes to support them, when they start building mosques next to our churches. Start positive discrimination in their favour? Start thinking before it`s too late… …Many epidemic diseases are brought from their shores such as AIDS, and the Ebola Virus ,then because of the already lack in employment oppurtunities you will see a rise in Violent crimes in order for them in desperation to self support… …just back from Florence and the city is full of them, soon we will be having organised crimes committed by these people… ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat All in all, the most common theme in the negative comments targeting migrants was the perception that they are invading Malta, posing an imminent threat for the local population; a perception that was even explicitly expressed in some of the comments we analysed: ! ! 20 Metaphors of invasion …Beware they are gradually taking over Malta… …Do we really want this country being over run, first they want to pray where they want. What next ban bacon, ban feasts…. …This is because there is an expectation that these groups will explode in numbers. Bye bye Marsascala ghal Maltin. Persona non grata ser nispiccaw… …we are protecting our country from losing our culture, language and most important of all - freedom. .. Muslim immigrants vs. non-muslim immigrants …the same cannot be said for muslim immigrants who have nothing in common with the Europeans… …you must also acknowledge that there is a massive difference between lets say Turkish or Egyptians Muslims and Somali or Pakistani ones. We're not getting the right sort of Muslims unfortunately. … …There are cultures, and then there are other cultures, which despite us not being a pure race, we never had problems with any of them, its only now that we talk about minorities, and their integration, why now, because you know damn well that these people don't integrate. full stop… …Do let us distinguish between migrants and Islam. While we should be humane to migrants let us not forget, despite what some would want us to believe, that Islam preaches death or servitude to ANYBODY who does not convert to Islam…. ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Trends in relation to homophobia in Malta Turning to the axiological values that underlie comments with a negative attitude towards members of the LGBTIQ community, the most prevalent motivation for them seems to be related to religious concerns, and more specifically the assumption that these individuals lead a life that does not conform with the Divine will: The last comment in the examples above also shows another common conception that appears to spur negativity against the LGBTIQ community, and especially homosexuality: the idea that any deviation from heteronormative values is abnormal. In the following examples, one can see how this particular perception can give rise to comments that range from viewing homosexuality as abnormal behaviour to viewing it as a disease. ! ! 21 Religious concerns …we sold our souls on ideologies that go against the word of god… …The Bible, however, is quite clear, not just in specific passages but throughout the sacred text, that same sex unions are disapproved by God… …that is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies since they given up Divine truth… …Why don t the education teach the LGBTQI THE NORMAL way as god wants… Abnormality …I just totally disagree with them pretending to be normal couples… …Natural law makes it impossible to equate a homosexual relationship to a heterosexual relationship… …The practice of homosexuality qualifies as a "disease" because by definition "disease is a disorder of the normal function of an organism”… … 'gay persons’ Most of these people have disordered condition… ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Finally, as the following examples show, while in the case of migrants the most common allusion was to the concept of invasion, in the case of members of the LGBTIQ community it is that of doom, which is hardly surprising given the fact that most negative comments in this corpus are triggered by religious concerns. Approximating the general public’s perception In the second part of the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. research workstream, partner countries carried out an assessment of the perceptions of the local population when it comes to actual examples of discriminatory discourse and definitions of hate speech on the basis of an online survey and follow-up interviews. In Malta, we circulated the relevant questionnaire, which was developed following the common C.O.N.T.A.C.T. methodology, on Google Forms both in English and Maltese and distributed it using multiple University of Malta mailing lists and Facebook posts,. After analysing the obtained responses, we ran 4 focus group interviews with members of the general public who responded to our respective call for participants. The C.O.N.T.A.C.T. questionnaire The number of respondents totalled 199 for the English version, and 10 for the Maltese version of the questionnaire, i.e. 209 overall. Even though the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. methodology targeted only people from 18 to 35 years of age, we collected data across all age groups. More specifically, as the following pie chart shows, the largest proportion of our respondents belonged to the over ! ! 22 Metaphors of doom ….Sorry to say ,but we have HELL on EARTH… …Sodom and Gomorrah alive and well in Malta!… …Today it’s gays, then transgender, then gender fluid, then polygamy, then, then, then – bridges to hell!… …fucking degeneracy of the world, I tell you. … ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat A few of our respondents also identified further grounds on which the have experienced insults and threats, these being disability, language preference, mental health issues, personal life style and social class. Notably, three Maltese respondents also noted that they have been insulted on the basis of their nationality abroad. When asked about the various settings in which they have felt as targets of insults and threats because of one of the aforementioned protected characteristics, our respondents singled out the street and work settings as the most prominent ones, at 23.6% each, followed by the school (17.1%), online (14.3%), and public transport settings (7.9%). Such insults and threats also seem to emerge relatively often in relation to sport, at social gatherings and when travelling abroad. ! ! 29 Abroad At civil services At commercial outlets At home At school At social gatherings At work In relation to sport In the media In the street On public transport Online 0 17.5 35 52.5 70 40 22 66 1 11 66 10 48 1 2 2 9 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Turning to the question of witnessing insults and threats targeting others on the basis of some protected characteristic, the number of respondents who reported that they have indeed witnessed such events was higher than those who haven’t across all conditions. Here, the most common bases for such incidents, alongside the percentage of participants who have witnessed such events, seem to be in descending order skin colour (83.7%), ethnic origin (78.9%), nationality (76.6%), sexual orientation (75.6%), religion (74.2%) and gender (61.7%). Again, these responses seem to corroborate our finding that xenophobia is more widespread than homophobia in the local context: Moving on to the settings in which the questionnaire participants reported to have witnessed incidents in which individuals were targets of such insults and threats, 83.3% of our respondents noted that they have witnessed such incidents online, 72.7% in the street and 59.3% on public transport. The next most common settings in which such incidents have been witnessed by our respondents were at work, at school and in relation to sport. ! ! 30 Abroad At civil services At home At school At social gatherings At work In relation to sport In the street On public transport Online 0 45 90 135 180 174 124 152 42 92 5 72 3 2 2 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat The aforementioned percentages are quite high and clearly suggest that hate speech is indeed a cause for concern in the local context, especially when it comes to the experience that local internet users have on social media and websites. This was also a conclusion that was reached in our training sessions with members of staff and students at the University of Malta, during which it was made evident that not a lot of local residents are aware of the legal provisions on hate speech on the Maltese islands. The next section of the questionnaire was designed to provide some indication as to why the general public might feel that hate speech and discriminatory discourse in general are not actively combatted locally. Reporting hate speech incidents In the penultimate part of the questionnaire, we sought to ascertain whether or not people generally report hate speech when they encounter it and identify the reasons why they may not opt to do so. Would you report insults or threats on the basis of nationality, skin colour, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation, if these were directed to As can be seen in the pie charts above, marginally more people would be more willing to report a hate speech incident that they would have witnessed, and many more would be unwilling to report such an incident directed personally at them. Turning to the reasons why they would not opt to report hate speech in each context, we can see in the relevant chart below that out of the 150 respondents who expressed their unwillingness or non-committal to reporting hate incidents directed at them, the highest proportion provided as a reason their lack of confidence in the relevant authorities’ ability to do something about the incident (62.7%) and the amount of hassle that reporting a hate speech incident takes (54%). ! ! 31 you? Don't know 38.8% No 33.0% Yes 28.2% someone else and you witnessed the incident? Don't know 52.2% No 17.2% Yes 30.6% ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Finally, out of the 145 respondents who were either unsure about reporting such incidents that they may witness or unwilling to do so, 36.6% said that it would be too much trouble to report an incident, while 35.2% admitted to not knowing how exactly to report it. Then, 29.7% of our respondents expressed their concern about potential reprisals stemming from such a report and 22.8% thought that such incidents are not worth reporting because they are too common in everyday life and an equal percentage suggested that they would not report hate speech incidents targeting others as it would not be any of their business. What these results suggest on the whole, however, is that, despite personal reasons and preferences, there is quite a widespread apprehension regarding the hassle that the process of reporting (and potentially prosecuting) incidents of hate speech involves, as well as an equally ! ! 32 I don't think it's serious enough to report I don't think it's any of my business I don't think the Police or authorities would do anything I would be worried about reprisals I would feel embarrassed or uncomfortable I wouldn't know how to report it I would only report a threat I would respond to it myself It would be too much trouble to report it Out of principle The incident is too common an occurence to report 0 15 30 45 60 33 3 53 8 9 51 20 43 7 35 8 I don't think it's serious enough to report I don't think the Police or authorities would do anything I would be worried about reprisals I would feel ashamed, embarrassed or uncomfortable I wouldn't know how to report it I would only report a threat I would respond to it myself It would be too much trouble to report it The incident is too common an occurence to report 0 25 50 75 100 36 81 4 7 42 24 30 94 52 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat widespread lack of confidence that the relevant authorities will do anything to vindicate the victims of such a verbal attack. Definitions of hate speech In the last part of the questionnaire, we sought to investigate the way in which the general public perceives the notion of hate speech, a concept that as many as 93.8% of our respondents indicated are familiar with. However, since hate speech can be defined in various different ways, we asked participants to indicate the extent to which they agree or not with such different definitions. These definitions varied in their content and were ordered in terms of severity, with the first one equating hate speech with plain discriminatory remarks, the second including insults, the third threats and the fourth and final one incitement to violence. At the same time, respondents were asked whether they thought that there should be a law regulating hate speech on the basis of each definition. As the following results indicate, the general public seems to be sensitised as regards hate speech, with the majority agreeing that in all its possible conceptions - from discriminatory remarks to incitement to violence - it should be regulated by law. Quite expectedly also, the closer a definition of hate speech gets to the “incitement of violence” criterion, the more universally acceptable it seems to be. ! ! ! 33 http:// reportinghat e.eu/reporthate Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Disagree Strongly disagree 0 25 50 75 100 7 3 11 19 78 91 ‘Hate speech means making prejudiced remarks about people because of their race or nationality or ethnic origins or religion or gender or sexual orientation’ Should this be regulated by law? 0 35 70 105 140 Yes No Don't know 37 40 132 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat ! ! 35 ‘Hate speech means threatening someone because of their race or nationality or ethnic origin or religion or gender or sexual orientation.’ ‘Hate speech means encouraging other people to be violent towards or show hatred towards people because of their race or nationality or ethnicity or religion or gender or sexual orientation.’ ‘Hate speech means insulting someone because of their race or nationality or ethnic origin or religion or gender or sexual orientation’ Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Disagree Strongly disagree 0 30 60 90 120 6 2 7 11 82 102 Should this be regulated by law? 0 40 80 120 160 Yes No Don't know 25 31 153 Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Disagree Strongly disagree 0 30 60 90 120 6 1 5 13 65 119 Should this be regulated by law? 0 50 100 150 200 Yes No Don't know 20 8 181 Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Disagree Strongly disagree 0 35 70 105 140 8 1 3 4 55 136 Should this be regulated by law? 0 50 100 150 200 Yes No Don't know 8 7 194 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat All in all, the results of this questionnaire provide some empirical data about the perception that internet users in Malta have of the hate speech phenomenon. The data resulted from this survey provide small-scale evidence about how the respondents perceive discrimination on racial, religious, sexual orientation and gender identity grounds, as well as what they think about the need to develop norms and tools to tackle such discrimination. More specifically, there appears to be more consensus among respondents in terms of acceptability with regards to insults and threats targeted at sexual minorities rather than national, religious, and racial minorities and more respondents have witnessed discrimination than have been a target of it. Regarding the regulation of hate speech, hate speech being a notion that is well known among our participants, the more extreme forms of violence and threat render more consensus among respondents with regards to legal ramifications. The C.O.N.T.A.C.T. focus group interviews The final part of the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. research strand involved a series of semi-structured interviews that were meant to help us gain a deeper understanding of the results obtained through our questionnaire. For this part, we conducted 4 focus group interviews with 21 participants, 11 female and 10 male, in total. Most participants were under 35 years of age, with 5 of them being older, and the groups comprised 13 Maltese, 6 EU and 2 non-EU nationals. Finally in terms of their occupation, 10 interviewees were students, 4 were academics, 2 were employed in administrative positions, 2 more were artists, while the remaining 3 were a marketing consultant, a computer programmer and a taxi driver respectively. Comments evaluations During all focus group interviews, there appeared to be broad consensus amongst the participants as to why the comments used in the questionnaire received the acceptability ratings that they did. In this vein, there were a number of themes that came to light during the interviews, the most pertinent of them being the distinction between xenophobia and homophobia in the Maltese context, and issues relating to integration and multiculturalism. The conclusion that xenophobia is a far greater issue than homophobia in Malta is certainly not new; it came out both in the comment data that we analysed, as well as in the questionnaire, where participants were less quick to label a xenophobic comment as unacceptable than they were a homophobic one. The focus group interview provided an opportunity to confirm this and to ask our interviewees’ opinions as to why this might be. As expected, participants confirmed that, in their experience, homophobia has become less of an issue in recent years and, as they pointed out, there are a number of reasons why this might be. ! ! 36 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat Firstly, with regards to LGBTIQ rights and legislation, Malta has taken large steps forward in recent years to the point where Malta is now one of the leading countries when it comes to acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. As our interviewees noted, this legislation change occurred after a long and strong campaign by the Maltese LGBTIQ community, which not only exposed legislators and the general public to LGBTIQ issues and needs, but also gave the community widespread exposure. As one participant characteristically pointed out, “nowadays because of the acceptance culture developing, we need to accept minority groups. Gay and homosexuality was at the forefront of that movement, has always been at the forefront of that movement” (Interviewee 20, Focus Group 4). Beyond the recent exposure that the LGBTIQ community has received, participants also pointed out that it is becoming increasing common to be directly related to a person of LGBTI or Q identity through friendship or family. Therefore, while LGBTIQ persons might indeed form part of their own minority group, they are still ultimately part of the ‘in-group’ of Maltese citizens. So, while, in the minds of some Maltese, LGBTIQ people are still ‘one of us’, migrants are not and will never be: “Because you know before people used to be very conservative so basically… because my grandmother, I think that she was kind of conservative but now that in her family her grandson or granddaughters are themselves homosexual she accepts it more openly you know, even if she has a little bit of a problem, but you know, now she's open to listen, she's open to, you know, she's more open to the idea and to the idea of accepting this, you know because it's involves Maltese you know it doesn't involve somebody else living, you know I mean another person coming to the country, or another nationality you know. So that's the reason why maybe they are more accept... how do you say?” (Interviewee 9, Focus Group 2) Another point picked up by our participants had to do with the widespread conflation of migrants with Muslim individuals as a reason for the expression of discriminatory opinions: “... this is a very sensitive issue I think. Um, even for people who are, have no problems with Muslims per se, but then, when you start seeing your, I guess, people feel nervous when they see their neighbourhood being transformed um, you know, with the appearance of a mosque for instance, um, they feel uncomfortable with that. So, less people would be inclined to say, you know, that, less people would be inclined to defend immigrants who are calling for these changes. ” (Interviewee 1, Focus Group 1) According to our interviewees, part of the fear of migrants is that they will take jobs that, otherwise, would go to Maltese people and would, therefore, have a negative impact on the economy and life in general. While migrants are seen as a threat to the stability of the country, LGBTIQ persons do not pose the same threat and do not have a direct impact on one’s life. Although one might not agree with their lifestyle, it appears to have little effect on one’s everyday existence. This is not the same for migrants, who are seen as a true threat to the Maltese way of life and stability: “I think most people in Malta, I mean with immigration, they see immigrants like ‘ah they're taking what's ours’ so that's why it effects. Like you said I ! ! 37 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat mean homophobia's just a mind-set ‘I don't accept you’ or ‘I accept you’ and it doesn't really affect me in general. I mean some people are uncomfortable by it, I don't know why, but I mean it's, they're not taking something away from them.” (Interviewee 6, Focus Group 2) Finally, it was also pointed out that this is not a product of Maltese mentality alone. Mainstream political discourse plays a role and reinforces the sort of xenophobic discourse used to speak about ethnic, racial, and religious minorities, and in particular African, Arab, and Muslim migrants. Moreover, the mainstream media further reinforces a general positive stance toward the LGBTIQ community. Hence, the negative discourse towards migrants may be normalised for society, making them less likely to rate it as unacceptable: “But the mainstream political discourse on the subject of multiculturalism and immigration actually reinforces racism.” (Interviewee 15, Focus Group 3) When discussing African, Arab, and Muslim migrants as opposed to migrants from Western and Northern Europe, the issue of assimilation and integration came out more prominently. Participants pointed out that while African, Arab, and Muslim migrants face a lot of discrimination and even hate, migrants from Western and Northern Europe do not generally face the same intolerance. In their view, it was because of this that the participants of the questionnaire might have been less likely to rate Islamaphobic or racist comments as negative. The negative stance toward the minorities mentioned above, is likely due to the fact that they do not assimilate as well into Maltese society. While Western and Northern Europeans seem to ‘blend in’, African, Arab, and Muslim migrants stand out both physically and culturally. Thus it became apparent that what the Maltese expects is not for one to simply integrate into society, but to fully assimilate: “but because it's easier for them to assimilate, not to integrate. We expect them assimilate, not integrate.” (Interviewee 3, Focus Group 1) In fact the common perception seems to be that Western and Northern European migrants have a very similar culture to that of the Maltese: “because they're the same, I think because, maybe in terms of culture, there's a lot more similarity between a Maltese and a European”. (Interviewee 1, Focus Group 1) To further reiterate this distinction between the LGBTIQ community and migrants as minority groups as a justification of the increasing discrimination toward migrants, the discussion of multiculturalism was inevitable. Multiculturalism is a hot issue that has been widely debated in recent years. Some argue that multiculturalism and acceptance of various cultures can contribute to a society where diversity is not only respected, but also embraced, and people of different backgrounds can come together to live in a colourful society of various languages, practices, ! ! 38 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat religions, and even cuisines. On the other hand, others argue that multiculturalism is not possible and creates animosity and distress to those living within such a society. During our interview sessions, we made no attempt to enter into a debate of such notions, so we can only look at the comments that our focus group participants spontaneously passed regarding multiculturalism with a view to understanding how these perceptions might have contributed to the acceptability ratings that the questionnaire yielded. All in all, there appeared to be a tendency to defend opinions that are taken to be protecting the Maltese culture. Multiculturalism might not be negative by virtue of what it stands for; what makes it particularly negative is its ability to push the Maltese culture as the dominant and visible culture of the island aside. As one participant put it, while giving their opinion about the low acceptability rating received by one of the comments, “in the other one he's attacking directly the people rather than just analysing the situation from a 'I want to protect my culture' point of view” (Interviewee 20, Focus Group 4). As this comment suggests, it may be considered less acceptable to directly attack a person on the basis of a minority identity, but if one is trying to defend and protect one’s culture, it is more acceptable to use such rhetoric. Another participant pointed out that, although the LGBTIQ community might be somewhat disjointed within itself, in the sense of having lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, people, and queer people all forming part of a unified group, the community might not in fact be so diverse within itself, in that members of the LGBTIQ are all working toward gaining legal and societal recognition of their sex, gender, sexual orientation and gender expression rights in some way or another. This is not to simplify the struggle of the LGBTIQ community by disregarding the work that they do for having safe spaces, better medical care etc., but rather to exemplify that, at least in the view of non-LGBTIQ persons, they have more in common with each other that they have that divides them. In addition, as already pointed out above they are again perceived, as a community, to have more in common with other Maltese people than say a black person from Sudan, or a Muslim person from Syria. Hence, as one participant pointed out that “in spite of the fact that the LGBTIQ…, where there's these subdivisions within, but it is much more… it's not so diverse. The issues that arise out of multiculturalism affect all areas of life cause there's culture, there's religion, there’s…” (Interviewee 13, Focus Group 3). Honing in on the LGBTIQ community, although, as discussed above, possibly due to recent legislation and awareness-raising activities, the general public is less willing to accept homophobic discourse, there still exists some homophobia in Malta, and participants of the focus group helped ascertain why this might be. It was noted during the interviews that people might be less inclined to mark a comment as discriminatory or hateful if that comment somehow involves the church. In other words, if the comment is inline with the church’s doctrine, the comment must be right, or at the very least, make sense: “Perhaps as well, the last one, the third one is more acceptable to people because it's, the context is less religious. The other two are religious stories, the first one about the church's commission, and the second one about um, the Dominican order, but the third one is about legislation, so it may be that um people find it more acceptable…” (Interviewee 4, Focus Group 1) ! ! 39 ! Xenophobic and homophobic attitudes in Malta ! Assimakopoulos & Vella Muskat 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. This latter point can even be seen in the following comment that was left in the questionnaire by one of our respondents: “The proliferation of immigrants and their culture is generating fear as well as inconveniences in some areas in Malta and reprisals are sometimes understandable.” Finally, if the incidents reported on the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. website and are any indication, they too show that there is far more discrimination against individuals on the basis of their ethnic origin or religion than on that of their gender identity and sexual orientation. Turning to the quite prominent positive attitude towards members of the LGBTIQ community, as we have seen, this has been attributed by our focus group interview participants to the inclusion of the relevant group in the Maltese in-group. Still, the role that recent legislation on LGBTIQ rights has played in this vein could also be a contributing factor; after all, Malta was the only country in the C.O.N.T.A.C.T. consortium where the positive stance towards the LGBTIQ minority was higher than the negative one in the online comments analysis, when it also ranks first in legal and policy human rights of LGBTI people in Europe. 18 When it comes to the prosecution of hate speech, however, things could be improved. As the majority of our survey participants asserted, the most common reason that deters them from reporting hate speech is the presumption that it would be too much trouble to do so, coupled with the belief that the relevant authorities would not deal with the issue in an effective manner with a matter that is so commonplace. As another one of our questionnaire respondents put it in a comment: “When I did report once, regarding racism, on public transport, the bus company said, ‘We'll look into it’ and that’s all. In the realm of schools, there aren't any structures that make reporting easy. I would not go to a Head of School, for example, as some are themselves racist.” While we of course do not necessarily agree with this opinion, we do feel, as researchers, that it would be very useful, if law enforcement authorities kept records of the relevant incidents, as this would help build a more robust body of knowledge on the issue in Malta." 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 general public. On the other, it is also essential that the general 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. http://preview.tinyurl.com/ybvtk5rk18 ! ! 46