Five people have been charged with hate crimes since the beginning of this year, new figures show.

Minister of Home Affair Byron Camillieri revealed the figures following a parliamentary question put forward by Opposition MP Beppe Fenech Adami.

There were no cases in January, one in February, two in March, none in April and two in May.

Malta has seen a surge in hate speech comments directed at young anti-racism activists who fought for over 400 migrants to be let into Malta after being kept on commercial vessels for over a month.

A trans woman has also been a victim of horrific attacks from online commenters.

Malta’s Hate Speech Unit has urged people to file a formal report of hate speech or hate crime before exposing the incident in public.

It warned that exposing perpetrators of online hate crimes may incentivise them to delete the evidence as soon as they are aware that a formal report is going to be made to the unit.

In order to file a report against online hate speech with a formal criminal complaint, it must include a screenshot of the post or comment; the URL link of the alleged offender’s profile and a screenshot of their profile and the URL link of where the post and comment were originally published.

The unit, which consists of a team of 12, was established over a year ago to encourage hate crime victims to seek legal and psychological support.

According to The Shift News, there have been 34 reports since the inception of the Hate Speech and Crime Unit in October 2019. 

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