Former Labour MEP candidate Sharon Ellul Bonici posted a radical racist comment on social media recently, saying “suspend Schengen, armies out on European frontiers and shoot to kill. That’s the only temporary solution”.

Contacted by this newsroom, the former 2009 MEP candidate, now Secretary General of the ‘European Alliance for Freedom’, backtracked and said she was referring to the possibility of terrorist members using the migration crisis as a Trojan horse and not refugees who are fleeing a dangerous situation in their countries. “We should protect the borders and scrutinise whoever comes in. Obviously when writing on Facebook one would write a small comment, however this is what I meant to say”.

Pressured about her extremist ‘shoot to kill’ comment, she said: “Yes, like the USA and Australia. If anyone tries to illegally enter Australia, they try to shoot them down. If I try to enter legally they wouldn’t try to shoot you down. If someone wants to apply as a refugee and enter as a refugee I have no problem whatsoever. My fear is that the situation can be used as a Trojan horse where people from organisations like Isis will come in and our safety will be threatened. I have nothing against refugees”.

Asked whether this comment could be seen as promoting murder, given that if they do not enter legally, she wanted to ‘shoot them’, she replied: “First of all it’s a temporary solution, there’s no need to do it all the time. What I was referring to is what the USA and Australia do. Obviously there needs to be a temporary measure until something is set up to take care of these refugees for there to be easier channels whatever. But if there is a temporary measure where perilous people would not enter with the refugees, even if there just for a week, there has to be a temporary solution to help us handle it. It is currently not being handled well”.

Turning to her statement that the USA and Australia shoot to kill, she said: “I was speaking with a police officer and he said that when they are protecting the US – Mexican border, they have orders to shoot to kill if someone tries to enter illegally, and even in Australia. In Australia they go out on patrol boats and if they see illegal immigrants coming they shoot to kill, that’s the policy”.

In fact the above is not true. In the USA for example, border patrol officers have the right to use force only when they are attacked, while Australia removes migrants and places them in refugee camps on Pacific islands.

She said that she did not mean that countries should shoot innocent people escaping a massacre in their country. “You would have to be heartless. What I am saying is that we need temporary measures due to the invasion and so you need to scrutinise those coming in. Temporarily, they need to set up a way to see who is truly a refugee and who is coming in as a Trojan horse, that is my concern. When seeing pictures of dead boys on the beach, it pains me. ”

Pressured again about her “shoot to kill” phrase, and asked how she would be able to tell who is innocent or guilty and whether she was saying that, as a temporary measure, people should just shoot - she said she was referring to the “tough guys that come in under the guise of refugees and would be ISIS. I’m referring to those. We need temporary measures to distinguish between true refugees and the criminals”.

Asked how she plans to tell with a 100% certainty that such people would be, in fact, Isis members and not refugees angry at the situation or traumatised by war, she said – “That is something else. Automatically if you see women and children there is less scrutiny as obviously children are always innocent regardless of what country they come from, the same can be said of women as women are more pacifist. I’m not speaking against men but I would check their background yes, where they worked, you have to see what led them to flea in the first place, the men, yes, as under the circumstances and the scenario we are living in, unfortunately, we are not in times where we can let everyone in”.

She also said that she is currently out of the local political scene and that it doesn’t interest her anymore.

Encouragement of state-sponsored murder cannot be justified

Aditus Foundation Neil Falzon said he was “disgusted by Ms Ellul Bonici's comments. Her encouragement of a policy of state-sponsored murder cannot be justified under any circumstances, and there is no acceptable ‘context’ in which they can ever be accepted. How dare she appeal to the fear of people for her own personal political gain by encouraging a state to shoot on unarmed people? In what world is this idea ok to publicly express on FaceBook?”

“We understand fears regarding immigration. But we must insist that these fears are approached cautiously and responsibly, with proper information distributed to ensure discussions are based on facts and not misconceptions. Malta, as many other European Union Member States, has in place laws and procedures in order to identify refugees on the basis of the reasons of their flight. Ms. Ellul Bonici's approach is not to sound, relying on her arbitrary decision that women and children are acceptable, whereas men who do not fulfil her criteria are obviously thugs who should be shot or thrown back to a war”. 

He said that this is not the way governments should operate. “Our ancestors fought hard for the establishment of the rule of law, human rights and fundamental principles. We need to ensure respect for these values in the hardest times, and not their total disregard in comments hastily typed out on a personal Facebook page”.

“The Maltese public deserves more than this, and we hope the authorities condemn Ms Ellul Bonici's comments...although we are not too hopeful."