Was the protest peaceful or not?

The intro to The Times item on January 14 this year reporting the incidents at the Safi barracks read: "Twenty-seven illegal immigrants and two soldiers were injured, some of them seriously, after members of the armed forces beat the immigrants during a peaceful protest at the Kirkop football ground yesterday morning".

However, in his report on the incidents, Judge Franco Depasquale emphasises that the protest was neither peaceful nor legitimate.

The Times had used the term "peaceful protest" when referring to the situation prior to the clashes with the soldiers. Its journalists on site had not observed any of the protesting immigrants demonstrating any visible signs of violence and the situation there appeared to be tranquil.

In fact, the situation was so tranquil at that stage that the journalists present were allowed by army officers to interview the immigrants.

What constituted the violence according to the inquiry report was that "the immigrants decided to go against the centre's regulations and that using violence (although not much) they pushed the gate with a soldier behind it and escaped from the area which was assigned to them".

The report also points out that the immigrants then proceeded to walk normally to the pitch (where the clashes eventually took place).

The report says it assumes that the journalists "possibly" reported that the immigrants' protest was peaceful because they did not know that the immigrants had escaped from the centre assigned to them.

In support of its use of the term peaceful protest, The Times reported what had happened in the pitch, that about 95 migrants were protesting against their lengthy detention and that soldiers in anti-riot gear turned up en masse and beat them with truncheons when the migrants refused to return to their barracks.

Judge Depasquale describes how immigrants in another part of the barracks (the MT compound) were reported to have thrown stones but this did not apply to the immigrants who were protesting on the pitch and against whom the action was taken.

From then on, besides the gate incident and the stones thrown in the MT compound, the violence by immigrants occurred during the clashes and just before. The inquiry report concludes that excessive force was used during this time by the army.

The immigrants forcefully resisted being apprehended by the soldiers and a few others threw stones they found on the floor and also brandished sticks they used to support make-shift banners.

Also, just before the clash, a few of the immigrants "violently" pushed some other immigrants who wanted to leave the protest when the soldiers appeared in riot gear. Describing this point in time, Judge Depasquale says that "the evidence shows that although the immigrants seemed not to have any weapons, they insulted the soldiers and showed them they did not fear them... even when the C Company platoons closed in on them and were but a few metres away".

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com