The thin edge of the wedge
Government has submitted several proposals to amend criminal law. Amongst these amendments was one to raise the penalty for 'racial crime'. Now let's get one thing straight, ANR is not against the stiffening of sentences. Indeed we believe that most sentences meted out are way too lax. Take the case of a recent foreign rapist: six months suspended sentence. Utterly hilarious if it were not so tragic. What we are against however, is the concept of ideological crime.
We were under the impression that equal justice signified that justice is served irrespective of the race, colour, gender or creed of both the aggressor or the victim. The introduction of ideological crime is incredibly dangerous to a democracy and the rule of law. These are in fact the first weapons that were introduced and employed by all tyrants to stifle and persecute opposition. The stiffening of sentences related to 'ideological crimes' is compounds the danger.
This ideological crime means that if a Maltese person punched an illegal African immigrant and the intent was deemed to be racially motivated then the consequences would be worse than if the same person punched a Russian student and possibly also worse than if an illegal African immigrant raped a fellow illegal immigrant.
The absurdity of it all is immediately obvious. It is not the gravity of the act that is being judged here but the ideological 'frame of mind'. And who is going to be the arbiter of the intent? Why was the fact that an illegal immigrant wounded by a car immediately deemed racial (when the identity of the perpetrator remains unknown - let alone his motive) and rapes committed by illegal immigrants on Maltese people (including the one mentioned above, where the offender got a miserly six month sentence) were not?
This is the thin edge of the wedge. These are the 'hate' crimes which those with a vested interest have long been clamouring for. Next we can expect to see an ever widening interpretation of the act. As we have witnessed all around Europe, This act will expand to cover homosexuality and religious sentiments, indeed, everything and anything that the state deems to be ideologically unacceptable. Soon enough, statements like those issued by the Vatican on homosexuality and Islam will be deemed as 'ideologically offensive' and therefore liable to 'hate crime'. Soon enough, the tyranny of liberalism will complete its takeover and begin to prosecute all those who dissent and refuse to tow the 'party line'. The same people who are in favour of these laws are the very same people that ironically call all those who disagree with their worldview Nazis and Fascists. Talk about hypocrisy!