Malta’s police commissioner nominee would like to see a dedicated hate speech crime unit within the Maltese police force to address the country’s growing hate crime problem.

“What we have done in regards to domestic violence, we will do the same about hate speech,” Angelo Gafá, the current police force CEO, said during a parliamentary grilling today. “There will be a dedicated unit in the police force.”

Currently, Victim Support Unit, the dedicated unit for domestic violence reports, is part of the police force. The Hate Crime And Speech Unit, however, is a government entity focused on providing victims of hate crime with legal and psychological support. 

Gafá proposed centralising a hate crime unit within the police force to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

He also noted that a lot of hate speech was done online, and proposed beefing up how police tackle cybercrime as well, saying that when it comes to online crimes, police need to identify who the person behind the username is.

Reports on hate crimes in Malta more than quadrupled in the first week of June when compared to the same week in May.

While seven cases had been reported in the first week of May, 31 were reported in the first week of June, the Times of Malta reported.

By the 10th of June, 78 cases of hate crime had been called in – nearly eight times what had been reported in the first half of May.

Malta has some of the highest amounts of online hate speech in the EU, with a 2018 Eurobarometer study finding that 55% of Maltese people believe that hate speech was the illegal content they were most likely to encounter accidentally online.

Gafá becomes the first police commissioner to face a parliamentary committee grilling before his appointment, following changes to the appointment process introduced earlier this year. However, he only faced questions from Labour MPs after the Opposition boycotted the entire process, describing the entire process as a farce.

The Public Accounts Committee unanimously approved his appointment.   

What do you think of this proposal?