A local Maltese television show has come under fire for featuring Imperium Europa leader and right-wing firebrand Norman Lowell in an hour and a half long interview.

Lowell, who is running as an MEP candidate in the upcoming May elections, appeared on F Living’s discussion programme Attwali and spoke about a number of extreme and sensitive topics, from Hitler and his anti-abortion stance to eugenics and the killing of disabled babies.

The show – which opened with a Maltese singer singing a song called Sabiħa before casually shifting gears to an interview with Malta’s most infamous right-winger (because of course it did) – introduces Lowell as the founder and leader of IE and a 72-year-old banker-artist who lives in Valletta.

Host Kevin Mercieca gives Lowell, who is considered to be a Nazi sympathiser, the opportunity to make his case – but pushes him on some of his beliefs

During the show – which features an ad for an upcoming interview with AD leader Carmel Cacopardo alongside Lowell explaining how world champion boxer Muhammad Ali was a “mix-breed” bred specifically to be a fast and strong athlete – Lowell does everything from describing the physical attributes of “negroids” to explaining how nature itself doesn’t want any mixing between black and white people.

“As a party, Imperium Europa believes that people with severe disabilities, or who are mentally defective, should either be aborted or killed mercifully an hour after birth,” Mercieca says at one point. “Now, you encourage the birth of super-babies, super-babies that at the age of 12 become professors,” he continues, to which Lowell gives out a small giggle.

“Don’t you feel here that you are going against human rights? As in, who are you to say that someone with disability is a person who doesn’t have a chance to live? Aren’t they people like anyone else? What do they have any less than other people?” Mercieca asks.

“Look, in Europe, and in the white countries, like America, we are killing, aborting millions of healthy babies,” Norman Lowell said in response. “It could be that among these abortions, millions in a year, you could have a genius – Isaac Newton or whatever – and we are killing them without giving them a chance. That’s what the big parties and the EU wants.”

“This is called Eugenics,” he continues, “and Eugenics wasn’t started in Germany, but begun by an American woman named Margaret Sanger who had to escape to England, that’s how much they harassed her. And today, she’s a hero.”

Eugenics is a controversial scientific belief aimed to “improve” the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by “breeding out” disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population.

I Am Diego, a Maltese autism support Facebook page, called out the fact that Norman Lowell was given air time

“A few weeks back, a local TV program broke the internet because it gave air time to prison inmates,” the page began. “Some argued that these people shouldn’t be given the opportunity to make their voice heard, and that the program who gave them the opportunity to do so should have known better.”

“I am amazed though, how no one spoke about yesterday’s interview with Norman Lowell on the program Attwali on F living,” I Am Diego continued. “He discussed freely his idea that we should terminate the pregnancies of ‘mentally and physically defective’ babies or adopt the practice of ‘mercy killing’ one hour after birth. He also talked about how it’s not a nice experience to walk into a village full of ‘village idiots’ and about how no one wants ‘handicapped’ people. Is this content ok to go on air? Where are the soulful people who are so quick to comment on nonsense news? Is this what we have become?”

Do you think Norman Lowell should have been interviewed on television?

READ NEXT: Facebook Says ‘Nein’ To Norman Lowell’s Hitler Pilgrimage Video

Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]