Official police reports related to the incident in which a young Somali man was beaten by Maltese persons in Hal Far and then run over by a motorcycle were incorrect.

While Abdi Fatah, 18, was truly beaten by three men with iron rods until he lost consciousness and allegedly thrown into the middle of the road by the aggressors, a motorcyclist stopped to assist him and divert traffic, said Andre Callus on behalf of Moviment Graffiti and a number of other organisations at a press conference yesterday. Mr Callus explained that all evidence shows that the incident was racially motivated. Furthermore, he claimed that the police were not investigating the matter, as they had not spoken to the victim or his friend up to last Wednesday.

The incident took place on the evening of 6 July as Abdi Fatah and his friend, who both live at the Hal Far open centre situated close to the hangar, went for a bike ride in the area. At one point, a car overtook them and stopped them. Three Maltese men got out of the car armed with iron rods. Luckily, one of the migrants managed to escape and run to the open centre to call for help.

Abdi Fatah however was caught and beaten and verbally abused until he lost consciousness. Some things were also stolen from him. Medical examinations showed that he had not been run over

Moviment Graffitti together with Abdi Fatah and his friends believe that it was a racially motivated incident as the aggressors could have just simply robbed him, Mr Callus said.

Furthermore, this was not the first incident in which migrants were victimized in Hal Far. It is also not a coincidence that two other migrants were beaten in less than a month, Mr Callus said. Suleiman Abubaker, from Sudan, died following severe blows to his head by a bouncer in Paceville at the end of May.

While condemning any type of aggression and violence, Mr Callus said that racist attacks were even worse and called on the authorities to take concrete and serious action. Many people could have done something on getting to know of these incidents, he said, but many remained silent, reiterating the press conference slogan ‘silence is complicity’.

Parliamentarians speak of the so-called “no-go-areas” but migrants are the ones who are attacked, Mr Callus added.

The NGOs participating in the press conference called to break the silence on racism as most institutions, MPs and MEPs were ignoring it. They said that the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality had to take a more proactive role and more resources be allocated to education against racism and called for all political talk on racism and depicting immigration as a threat to stop, as irrational fear was leading to homophobia.

“Hopefully this will truly be the last incident of the sort,” Mr Callus said, with reference to the peace walk in Paceville following Suleiman Abubaker’s death.

Abdul Kadir Ahmed who works with migrants and who also addressed the press conference said that migrants have been receiving threats and flyers with racial talk for quite a while but now people in cars were throwing urine at them from plastic bottles or bags. Others stopped near the Marsa open centre offering migrants work and then squirted pepper spray in their eyes when they approached the car.

“Why do these incidents only happen to migrants?” he asked.

The Jesuit Refugee Service Malta, Peace Lab, Third World Group, Kopin, Migrants’ Solidarity Movement, Koperattiva Kummerc Gust, Alternattiva Demokratika Zaghzagh and Zminijietna also participated in the press conference.