Shocking. And we brush this aside to concentrate on making a fuss about a ‘crucified’ dog and cat, as though they are somehow more important than human beings
Our priorities and sense of values are really twisted. The whole island seems to be fixated on the story of the ‘crucified’ dog and cat, missing the point that this is not about animal cruelty but about the fact that there’s a psycho roaming free when he should be in the secure wing of a mental hospital.
I can’t abide people who make a show of fussing about dogs and cats and who then are hard as nails with the suffering of human beings.
Exactly how and why is the ‘crucifixion’ of a dog and cat (which were dead already when the nails went in, or do these people think that it is possible to get an animal to stay still while you carefully nail it in place – shows how much they know about animals) more appalling than a soldier beating up a vulnerable individual WHILE HE IS HANDCUFFED AND UNABLE TO DEFEND HIMSELF and then leaving him to die of a heart attack, still handcuffed and in isolation.
We really need to get a grip on ourselves. This is a shocking story, but to get people worked up, you would have to have a soldier beat a tied-up dog not a tied-up man.
Times of Malta reported this morning:
Migrant died after being beaten by DS officer, court told
Three two officers of the Detention Service were accused in court today of the involuntary murder of a Nigerian migrant.
Ifeanyi Nwokaye, 29 died on the night of April 16-17, 2011.
The accused are Lt Roderick Azzopardi, 29 of Zabbar who was duty officer on the day, Bombardier Aldo Simiana, 41 of Birkirkara and then Bombardier Carmela Camilleri, 55 of Zurrieq.
Police Inspector Keith Arnaud said that on the day, six migrants had escaped from Hal Far Detention centre. Two were caught within a short time, including the deceased.
According to reports received by the police, Roderick Azzopardi had beaten up the victim while arresting him, while the other two had failed to see if the victim had seen a doctor before being placed in isolation.
The court heard how the victim spent an hour on the floor handcuffed before dying shortly afterwards from cardiac arrest.
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Racism, xenophobia, violence, complex of superiority vis-à-vis less fortunate people and an acute complex of inferiority vis-à-vis those from Northern lands are among the “virtues” that are most equally shared by the Maltese.
So much so that even on this page, racist comments are not uncommon. If those who contribute here are to be considered the crème de la crème of Maltese intelligentsia, well, then, i sell the passport and move further South, for health reasons (dixit Jerry)!
So you know the person responsible? You must do if you are 100% sure that they were dead when the nails were driven in.
[Daphne – You’re clearly not a keeper of dogs and cats, Mr Tyrell, or even a practical person with basic knowledge of biology. But I suggest you try an experiment: find yourself a cat or a fox terrier and try to get it to hold still while you carefully nail down all four paws neatly. Of course they were dead already. That’s why there was no blood. The veins of corpses don’t bleed. You need the heart to be pumping for that to happen.]
It was recently published that the animals found showed signs of being frozen prior to being hung on the cross, therefore they were dead already as DCG rightly said.
Daphne is completely right on that one. Not only is it, let us say, potentially detrimental to one’s health to try to do something like that, but I believe there have been reports in the papers for previous killings confirming that the crucifixions were performed post-mortem.
Besides, crucifying a small animal would be extremely painful for the it, but probably not fatal, unless by eventual infection. Crucifixion in humans causes death by asphyxiation due to the body weight pulling on chest muscles, eventually causing the victim not to be able to breathe due to fatigue.
In a small animal, body weight to muscle strength ratios are very different.
Is this the same James Tyrrell of County Antrim, or am I missing something here?
[Daphne – Yes, he disguises himself from me as Joseph or Joe Attard occasionally.]
Sad that try as he might, he can’t keep away from you. He religiously comments under your articles on the The Malta Independent, never failing to slag you off. The fervour with which he goes about doing it makes some question his motives.
James Tyrell is feeling frustrated because the sheep and goat population has gone down.
Well I suppose one can always blame the PN for that too.
The person is probably just an attention seeker, I would not be surprised at all if the dead animals were just roadkill he collected and is using to prank all these *sensible* souls.
No animals involved, but admit to having done relatively stupid but harmless things involving the general public in my youth.
This is a horrible story. It doesn’t do it justice to say he died of a heart attack – we often associate that with clogged arteries. It’s quite unlikely that a 29-year-old would suffer from severe coronary artery disease.
What we’re told is that he had a cardiac arrest. This is meaningless. We all suffer cardiac arrest when we die – hence in most countries it is deemed insufficient to list cardiac arrest on a Death Certificate without classifying why. In fact, the clever thing in an autopsy (he’s most definitely had one) is saying how the got there (i.e. establishing a cause of death).
What needs to be said is why this guy suffered a cardiac arrest. It has to be on his death certificate. Did he suffer from any underlying condition that caused the arrest? Or was he brutally beaten to death?
[Daphne – I seem to recall earlier testimony – from medical experts during the compilation of evidence – which said that the handcuffed man received a huge kick to the groin and that he died (through cardiac arrest) because of this.]
Mamadou Kamara is the man who had died after a beating and a kick to the groin. The latest case relates to the death of another man, Ifeanyi Nwokoye.
We only know about their savage beating because they died. We’re not told how many are beaten up badly but survive.
Precisely, which healthy 29 year old dies of cardiac arrest? Can you imagine the pain the poor man was in for him to have suffered cardiac arrest from his injuries? The brutes..
Made me want to puke when I read it but as you say, our value priority is totally f*cked up. Makes you want to leave this God forsaken island.
It was much worse in the 70s and 80s under the socialist regime. Many Maltese shed their blood back then fighting for democracy and defending liberty from the clutches of that bloody tyrant. Mintoff’s uniformed brutes were atrocious.
This are also shocking news, but on the economic level:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140206/local/trade-deficit-triples.505751#.UvRhZ83QQXw
“Malta registered a trade deficit of €108.5 million in December, up from €34.1 million in the same month of 2012, according to preliminary figures published by the National Statistics Office.”
Do not compare the two, please. I feel a lot about that immigrant too and it is something that does not make me proud to be Maltese.
But Daphne, I love animals and though as you said the two animals were not crucified alive they were still probably killed cruelly, whether the perpetrator is sick or not.
I do not know if you heard about the observation that if one wants to gauge a country’s advancement one checks its love for animals.
When a country progresses its inhabitants have a high regard for animals. All the developed advanced nations have a special love for animals.
When I was little there was not much love for animals in Malta. There were strays and sick animals roaming the streets and never did I see anybody feeding cats or dogs like you see so many do today.
[Daphne – I share your sentiments about cruelty, Silvio, but the new ‘love’ for animals in Malta is not a sign of progress. It’s just a matter of fashion, with few exceptions. The people who think they’re hippest and most fashionable now find it essential to plaster their Facebook faces with pictures of cute and/or lost dogs, occasionally cats, but dogs are more fashionable. They know nothing about animals or cruelty and are not interested. Abattoirs are not fashionable, nor are other animals – tortoises, for instance, which aren’t cute. And they would be the first to scream if they see a harmless mouse. It’s really quite tedious. If you want to check a country’s progress, look at how people behave towards each other, and not how they behave towards animals.]
full marks for that.
Your comments, Daphne, are spot on. “Look at how people behave towards each other” – no more need be said.
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi
[Daphne – Mahatma Gandhi said it so it must be right. Wrong. The greatness of a nation is judged by the way its women, children and poor are treated, and India failed and still fails colossally on all counts. No point being nice to your cows when your women are burned alive or raped by the village elders as ‘punishment’.]
Nazis disproved the Gandhi quote decades ago.
Handcuffed, beaten up, hurt, alone, and in an alien country.
And all because his priority was escaping his native land for want of a better future.
He was unfortunate enough to be washed up on the shores of this island of hospitality, which boasts of its peoples’ friendliness.
Tragic.
Jackbooted thugs.They would have felt very comfortable in the NSDAP.
Your analysis is absolutely correct. Sometimes I cannot recognise my own country anymore, but still there is hope.
“The court heard how the victim spent an hour on the floor handcuffed before dying shortly afterwards from cardiac arrest.”
PBS reported that Keith Arnaud testified that the victim did not die from his injuries, but from cardiac arrest.
Ah, yes, but would not the proximate cause of the victim’s death have been his injuries and situation (detained, handcuffed and injured by those meant to uphold law and order), which, ultimately, would have probably led to cardiac arrest?
Well Daphne, to be honest I don’t get why you are comparing the two cases. Being shocked by cases of violent abuse on helpless migrants(and if I remember correctly this case did cause quite an uproar when it happened) does not preclude being as shocked by cases of animal cruelty.
I think it is a good sign that people are becoming sensitised to such cases of animal cruelty. A measure of how civilized a nation is is how the weak and vulnerable are treated, including the animals. And yes, this *is* a case of animal cruelty, nothwithstanding the fact thar the perpetrator is also obviously mentally deranged.
[Daphne – “A measure of how civilized a nation is is how the weak and vulnerable are treated.’ Exactly. The weakest and most vulnerable in our society are not stray animals, but human beings washed up here with literally nothing. And how do we treat them? And if it’s animals that concern people more, then I suggest they stop fixating on dogs and cats and visit some cow farms, pig farms and chicken batteries. And after that, they can visit the abattoir. These are not people concerned with the suffering of animals; they are people manifesting the usual herd behaviour, this time doing the fashionable thing of acting fussed about dogs and cats. I noticed long ago that those most likely to fixate on dogs and cats are self-involved individuals wrapped up in their own little world. The fixation with these particular animals is itself a manifestation of their egocentricity: dogs and cats, unlike for example tortoises, respond positively to their owners while asking for nothing in return except food. Caring for people, conversely, demands that our ego gives way to the concerns of others.]
That the case of soldiers beating a handcuffed migrant to death is also extremely shocking, and as I said it did shock many people at the time, but that was almost three years ago, and if you expect people to remain worked.up about a story in the media for three years, I think you’re expecting a bit too much.
[Daphne – No, I don’t remember any shock at all at the time. On the contrary, I remember comparing the passivity about these deaths to the public angst and show about that shot dog the outraged public posthumously named Star. Don’t you remember the fuss about that – the marches, the statue, the frenzy and panic? You’d think a soldier had kicked a handcuffed man in the groin and killed him.]
Yes, one would expect people to be shocked anew with the statement that this man died of cardiac arrest.
If we apply that reasoning then we should not cry murder when people are shot because we can also state that they died from cardiac arrest and conveniently forget that it was the damage from the bullet/s which caused the hypovolemia that led to the cardiac arrest.
It is becoming increasingly evident that what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. Keeping mum does not safeguard the reputation of an institution in the long run in spite of dirty marketing.
Well, Daphne. I don’t disagree with you at all. I just choose to see the concern with animal cruelty as a positive sign, that’s all. Of course we still have a long way to go, but then again, so does the rest of the world.
With regards to farms and abattoirs, I think that there isn’t enough awareness about the appalling conditions that these animals are subjected to. I happen to feel very strongly about the atrocities that are committed daily in the name of cheap bacon and fried chicken, but the truth is that very few people actually know what is going on in these places. In my experience most people are appalled, and sometimes sick to their stomach, when shown videos of the routine animal slaughter carried out in abattoirs.
Of course, it is much easier to feel empathy towards cats and dogs since we consider them as companions and not as food. In a sense killing a dog or cat is much worse than killing a cow or chicken for food, since their suffering is that much more senseless. I am a realist and I don’t expect the entire world to turn vegan so that we can avoid killing cows. But at least if we cannot avoid killing cows, I think we have a moral obligation to make their lives less stressful and their deaths less painful, even at extra cost to ourselves. In contrast I feel there is absolutely no excuse for killing animals that are not needed for food, be it for fun, sport, religion or sheer batshit craziness as seems to be going on in the case of the Mosta killings.
As for the migrant incident, I seemed to remember quite a controversy regarding the killing of this migrant, which is why I commented about it in the first place. Wasn’t there a march organized by various NGO’s following his death? My memory isn’t completely clear about it though. I may be confusing it with some other case, in which case I do apologize. I also think though, that the hostility to irregular migrants is overrepresented in the media, in the sense that there are few people in actual fact that deep down really want to sink the boats and kill the immigrants. Keep in mind that for years now there has been a politically motivated pressure towards making racist discourse more socially acceptable. When most people speak about getting rid of the “blacks”, they usually have no conception of what is actually implied by what they are saying. As in most things, when they are brought face-to-face with the actual horror of the situation, most people do not remain unmoved.
But yes, our callous treatment of irregular migrants *is* an appalling disgrace, as you say, but I don’t think that one should use one to downplay the other. And even if the concern with cats and dogs is nothing but a manifestation of some kind of herd behavior, at least it’s a starting point, and it does give me at least some hope.
So let me get this straight.
A migrant who could possibly be fleeing from gross human rights violations at home is severely beaten up by a soldier and dies in isolation, still handcuffed.
Chinese billionaires who probably couldn’t care less about human rights gare escorted by policemen so that they are not bothered by the free citizens of this country.
People are disproportionately concerned with getting hold of one sick individual for crucifying the corpses of cats and dogs, as if he’s killing their own children.
And some people (the infamous ‘other Malta’ you rightly identify) think this is a normal state of affairs.
My, my, how collective values have been twisted. I’d like to hope this can all just become a phase in the future, but these kind of people make it so hard to do so.
For a country that seems more like 1930s Germany, animals are more important then migrants. Our government reflects this insanity. Shame on all those who voted it into power.
As a general rule I prefer animals to people. Animals are innocent and are nothing like people, so yes I am one of those people who are more concerned about the animals than of this or any other case involving people (i don’t know), immigrants or not.
Then you are not all there. If you care more about a dog than you do about a refugee, I have mixed feelings of pity and contempt for you. And this is coming from someone who’s been a vegetarian for over 20 years.
Malta would be a much better place if there were more animals and less people.
So top yourself and leave your earthly possessions to the abattoir.
I am becoming more and more ashamed to say I am Maltese.
Your analysis is correct.
I am a true, genuine animal lover, unable to kill a spider or a mouse. That probably came from two things – a landed godfather who used to take me on his lands with the dogs, horses, cattle, the barn cats, and everything else, and crucially, from reading children’s classics where animals took on a unique and valuable character of their own. That kind of education feeds imagination, and I believe that you cannot feel empathy or sympathy for the suffering of a person which has been recounted to you rather than witnessed first hand, if you do not have a reading-induced fertile imagination.
I used to be involved in a local do-gooders group, and whilst any one of them would have readily cried at the death of their pet, be it cat, dog, bird or hamster, they always justified their racism by saying that we cannot possibly keep the whole of Africa here. Their heart was as cold as a tomb to the physical, mental and real suffering of a foreigner.
I decided to do something about their ignorance and organised a visit to the Good Shepherd’s open centre in Balzan, housing hundreds of people in very squalid conditions. It was a cold, wet, wintry February day and the place was freezing cold. There was no heating and the huge old unused dormitories were partitioned with plywood sheets and bed sheets, to house anything up to ten families at a time, with just one kitchen for everyone, shared bathroom facilities and so forth.
The nuns pitch in and help, assisting in post delivery care, ensuring nutrition for children is suitable and that the mothers got the support they needed, alongside with generally acting as doting grandmothers to the children. They slept right next door to the hundreds of refugees.
My fellow Christian Maltese were so shocked by what they saw, that their racism dissipated and they started going round collecting second hand, unwanted appliances, blankets, pillows, television – anything that could make life a bit more comfortable. Having seen, visualised and assimilated, the simple and elemntary fact that these people weren’t living in the lap of luxury, and certainly not in anything resembling the comfort of their own homes, they finally understood that these people must have truly have had no choice but to flee their countries and try to make a new life elsewhere, which wasn’t at all nice either. I was relieved to see them all moved to tears at the horror stories recounted by all the friendly Africans there and all those parents losing young children on the way, and other tragedies.
That, I ascribe to lack of imagination.
A box office Hollywood production of a photogenic black family escaping unimaginable brutality in Somalia and trekking it all across the desert with people dying and being left behind on the way, the wife forcibly raped by the traffickers, eventually making it to the Libyan shores, and with nearly everyone dying when the boat capsizes in sight of shore, would be a God-send. It would fill in the pathetic void of imagination of most racists on that forsaken Island and change opinions overnight.
It is lack of real education, lack of imagination, lack of proper and formal upbringing, by parents with no moral, ethical and socially responsible fibre.
Hemingway had once observed that, paradoxically, those who have an exaggerated concern for animal rights are often surprisingly indifferent to acts of human suffering.
The crucifixion of animals is sick, but what I find even less palatable is the lack of concern for human beings.
Nobody seems to realise that a serial animal killer (the actual crucifixion is quite irrevelant really) is a serial HUMAN killer in the making. Most convicted serial killers have started off killing and torturing animals.
The fact that this last time there were two animals killed, rather than one, is very serious.
The killer is not getting his kick killing just one animal any more – or indeed showing that he just killed one. He needed two this time.
As with most stimuli, the more we are exposed, the less excitement it gives us. What next?
My question is: when will he start killing humans? It is tragic that so many animals were killed and (apparently) tortured. However, it would be much more tragic if this killer turned to humans instead. Nobody seems to be thinking along these lines.
The story about the immigrant got almost no media coverage at all. Why? Because the media know that the people are just not interested. This is tragic. This should have made it to thousands of walls on Facebook. It didn’t. People are just not bothered.
Indeed, a sensible post.
“Our priorities and sense of values are really twisted…. Exactly how and why is the ‘crucifixion’ of a dog and cat … more appalling than a soldier beating up a vulnerable individual WHILE HE IS HANDCUFFED AND UNABLE TO DEFEND HIMSELF and then leaving him to die of a heart attack, still handcuffed and in isolation.”
‘Meditate, gente.– meditate.’
Both cases are reprehensible.
To borrow from Gandhi’s words, the worth of a nation is how it cares for the vulnerable and defenseless.
As if it is something normal for a 29 year old to die of a heart attack. Cowardly bastards.
If I may Daphne, on another topic…
Conrad Mizzi today said that storing gas on a ship will safe. Is he serious? The video below shows the explosion obtained when a truck carrying LNG exploded. And this was just a truck.
If a tanker containing 140,000 cubic metres exploded, the explosion would be thousands of times bigger. People living in the south are worried but most people in Malta should be worried as the explosion would effect at least half of Malta.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDx5qGfaZI
The truck in this explosion was carrying only 20 tons of LNG, that is about 50 cubic metres. The ship in Malta will be storing 140,000 cubic metres, that is almost 3000 times as much of LNG.
Yes. And the rapid phase transition will be even more accelerated as soon as the gas hits the water.
It’s basically run for your life.
If the figures quoted above are correct, and taking the video into account a quick, back of the envelope calculation would seem to show that the potential danger is far greater than anybody seems to be actually fathoming at the moment.
From the video it looks like the explosion of 50 cubic meters of LNG easily affected a 200 meter radius, probably more, but it’s difficult to say from the video. If we assume these figures which seem rather conservative, and take an expansion factor proportional to the cube root of the volume, an explosion of 140,000 cubic meters would proportionally work out to an immediate blast radius of about 3km.
I hope my calculation is wrong. Please somebody tell me that it is.
With the ship moored at Marsaxlokk harbour, the explosion would easily encompass all of Marsaxlokk, Zejtun, Birzebbuga (and Freeport), Hal Ghaxaq and most of Marsascala. The industrial zone of Bulebel would also be heavily affected as well the heavily populated harbour area.
Jozef, there would be no way of outrunning it. Most of the south of the island would be a wasteland with thousands dead and the country’s industrial infrastructure decimated. It would spell the end of Malta as a self-sufficient country. It would truly be an apocalyptic scenario.
X’argument li tassew jagħmel sens. Dan il-poplu tilef tassew kull sens ta’ priorità. Jalla ma naħbtux ma’ xi ħajt biex niġu f’tagħna.
This crime is horrendous and it continues to show the xenophobia which has engulfed this island of ours.
Blacks and other dark-skinned people are perceived by many as third-class humans who may be exploited, abused, tortured and killed.
However, I totally disagree with your comments on the recent acts of animal cruelty. Even if the poor dog and cat which were crucified were dead already they were probably killed for that purpose and I do not believe that the perpetrator of that crime tried to minimise the pain and suffering of the dog or cat while killing them.
The real problem of animal cruelty in Malta has to do more with the police who do not take cases of animal cruelty seriously enough. Animals especially dogs and cats are helpless vulnerable creatures who usually depend on humans for their survival. Each act of animal cruelty is horrendous and should be condemned. The fact that everybody is shocked by this acts of cruelty is a good sign. I am reminded by a famous quote of Gandhi who said “Judge a country by the way it treats its animals”.
[Daphne – It is a common fallacy to see dogs and cats as somehow different to other animals. I have been to far too many industrial farms and abattoirs to be anything other than sceptical about the talk of cruelty to cats and dogs. If our views are not consistent, they are meaningless. It is farcical to talk about cruelty to a cat while tucking in to the leg of a pig that has been kept its entire life in a pen the size of a bedroom in a flat along with so many other pigs that it can barely move. As for Gandhi, I judge India not by the way it treats its animals but by the way it treats its women, children and those of the Untouchable caste.]
Trust me when I say that a pig knows when it is about to die. Anyone who has been to an abattoir can attest to this.
I doubt the same can be said about cats or dogs. Cows certainly have no idea even though their like are being shot metres away from them.
[Daphne – You are wrong about that. One of the most disturbing experiences of my working life was a cow extermination plant in which they queued up in a vast hangar to be killed. It was obvious that they knew, but instead of panic there was something much worse: hopeless resignation, the very same hopeless resignation you see in people queuing up to be killed in the same situation.]
I didn’t know that. Watching pigs go to the slaughter is heart-wrenching most probably due to the squealing which somewhat resembles human screaming. I think that it is precisely that similarity to my own race which makes it all the more unbearable for me.
In light of that, it is no wonder Orwell chose pigs to be the more equal animals on the farm. Perhaps he had a similar experience. In his Homage to Catalonia during his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War he spent a long time in rural environments. Perhaps that was what would later motivate him to put the pigs at the top of the pecking order in Animal Farm.
I saw videos of similar plants, Daphne. The cows are terrified to the point of paralysis.
Why do Maltese people hold Orwell in such high regard? He was a mediocre writer, and a Socialist hypocrite of the first order. He always claimed to have been motivated by the fight against totalitarianism, but his political beliefs were stupid in the extreme.
It’s not Orwell’s political beliefs that are admired. It’s his ability to sum up Malta’s Labour goverments decades before they happened.
You want a good summing of up Taghna Lkoll Malta? Forget Orwell, and read Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘Heart of a Dog’.
And the author wasn’t some Socialist poser like Orwell.
Baxx, yes he was a Socialist but he also wrote excellent books. Have you ever read ‘Coming up for Air’ or ‘Keep the Aspidistra Flying’?
You can’t deny that they are, at the very least, entertaining. They captivate the reader.
I feel drawn into to the storyline and yes — I have to admit — I even understand the way he frets about the rapid changes in the way the economy is run and the manner in which politics are conducted.
I do not share his utopian Socialism nor his admiration for Anarchism. I find him quite balanced when he describes his horror at the atrocities and acts of hatred committed by his own comrades towards the clergy in Spain for example.
He refrains from ‘frothing at the mouth’ style rants and it is interesting that his initial observations of Fascism ended up being equally applicable to Fascism’s cousin, Communism, in all its varied forms.
You may not like his political views but the thing that one can appreciate about Orwell is that his works encapsulate that moment of change that occurred in the West at the turn of the century and the years leading up to WWII.
As to him being a poser, granted I can’t prove you wrong there. He may well have been one.
My copy of ‘Heart of a Dog’ is on the way. Much obliged for the recommendation.
I am generally wary of any member of the glitterati from stable, capitalist Western countries claiming to fight against the stability and capitalism that gave them the intellectual tools and the revenue which allowed them to indulge in intellectual pursuits in the first place.
If you want real literature, and an authentic indictment of anything, you’re better off reading Charles Bukowski or Knut Hamsun. Or read me.
Baxx, I hear you there on your point about giving any credence to those people who complain about the very system that gave them the liberty to expound their views in the first place.
This story is horrible, but what is even more worrying are the implications for Maltese society.
The Armed Forces 1st Regiment – B Company – is responsible for security duties in various locations. It carries out land patrols and conducts vehicle checkpoints for traffic contraventions, illegal immigrants’ identification and apprehension, and anti-narcotics’ searches.
From the above, am I mistaken, or are these the same soldiers who stop Maltese citizens in the road at night, with their weapons in full view, in order to perform road blocks?
Because if they are, is a resistant or combative citizen prone to get severely beaten up by soldiers?
What are the rules of engagement of a soldier with a citizen? Are they trained to kill and maim and then given road block duties without being told that they are not fighting drug dealers in Cambodia, or are they given clear rules of engagement with the public that state that a citizen must never be beat up or suffer violence, but may be overpowered and rendered harmless and handcuffed instead?
It would be reasonable to expect that soldiers who deal with the apprehension of immigrants or who conduct road blocks should never use violence against such persons, but should, wherever possible, overpower that person, handcuff him, and render that person harmless. But this is Malta, where the army stops citizens in the street and where the police doesn’t uphold the people’s right to a lawyer during interrogation and where the members of the CID illegally show up after 7pm at a blogger’s house, because a blog post is really an urgent matter.
I find it hard to believe that TWO soldiers with training in the ‘apprehension of immigrants’ were unable to apprehend and render harmess ONE immigrant without beating him up.
So if Maltese citizen is signalled to stop by the army in a road block, but doesn’t, and becomes resistant or combative, does this mean that the soldiers may beat up that person, handcuff him or her, put them in their Landrover, take them to the police and have them place that person in solitary confinement at the lock up without seeing a doctor?
Imagine that citizen is your 19 year old brother, wrestled and beat up badly, lying handcuffed on the floor in an unknown solitary cell without medical attention, and then imagine the high amount of stress, humiliation and extreme anger that the victim will feel at having his human rights breached in such a spectacular way. Isn’t this conductive to a heart attack? Of course it is!
People are not really giving much of a damn because in this story the victim is an immigrant, but the law doesn’t distinguish between the nationality of different victims.
Thus were this to happen to a Maltese person, the soldiers would still be out instead of awaiting trial in prison, and will be arguing that ‘your 19 year old brother’ did not die of the beating, or lying handcuffed on the floor whilst in pain – but of a heart attack. Heck, that soldier would be out having a drink right now!
I doubt that would go well with the public.
It’s more common than we think. Some cases barely make the news.
Did you know that the only Allied casualty in the Libyan War could have been killed, indirectly, by our countrymen?
It was Théophile Hoata, a petty officer on board the French frigate Georges Leygues, taking part in operations off Libya, who died of “natural causes” during the night of 4th and 5th July 2011.
In 2002 he had been badly beaten up by four Maltese bouncers in Paceville. He was Polynesian by birth.
I wonder how many of these were soldiers and police officers working overtime.
Take the case of that guy who had his jaw broken by a kick to the head whilst headlocked in Gianpula – I believe that that’s a mixed martial arts move not just anyone would pull off. And that would be deemed illegal even in one of those MMA fights where (almost) everything goes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KiJk6YWEo8
At least there are still decent people on this island that are willing to fight against racisim and not afraid to show their faces…
Well done to the Malta Football Players Association (MFPA)!
There is always an extreme outrage when something like this happens to a cat or a dog. There was a similar reaction with the story of the dog which was buried alive. No one would have cared if someone nailed a chicken to a cross. If people love animals as they say they do, they would show the same concern for all defenceless creatures.
People in general don’t care about the major animal suffering they support with their consumer choices. Speciesism is prominent in countries like ours, where we think that we are animal lovers just because we have a dog at home or because we have a Birdlife membership. Pets are usually status symbols or a disposable household item.
The funniest thing was branding this individual as the Mosta Animal Killer, making it look like there is no other animal that is being killed and tortured for food, fashion, cosmetics, entertainment, etc.
Just because we are the supposedly intelligent animal, it does not mean that we are more worthy of life and rights. We are all equal creatures and no more important than other species. The same reasoning applies to the fact that animals are currently assigned value according to their cuteness or risk of extinction.
This argument is seen as an extremist approach and I always find someone who attempts to educate me on how animals were created for human subsistence and use. Just because we are able to torture an animal, it does not mean that it’s the right thing to do and that it should be done. And just because we were brought up in a society with a widely accepted practice, it does not mean that this practice is either natural or right. For example there is nothing natural when an adult man drinks milk, especially since it’s the milk of other species.
These “animal lovers” are happy to protect the few species that they think deserve to live and condemn other individuals who violate their irrational norms. And this applies also to the hypocritical outcry against hunting, cat killing in Asia, animal circuses etc. Don’t get me wrong, I would be saddened to hear about the death of a cat at Mosta (which by the way, for the benefit of the slow people out there, was crucified post-mortem). However you will not hear me talk about it at a fenkata.
We are simply not bothered about the blatant atrocities that we partake in, as long as this cruelty is taken care of by someone else. The fact is that the ignorance around is so gross that we expect the same ruthless corporations to sacrifice some of their profit to provide us with healthy food.
When human rights are involved, laws come into place and justice is done. But when it comes to animals, what happens? It is an outrage that these animals are being killed but I think the fuss is not merely about that but that this psycho has been roaming the streets for years, committing these crimes for an equally long time and we’ve not even come close to catching him. That is what is outrageous.
The article you make reference to is shocking news too, Daphne, but it is being handled seriously in court and those responsible will be held accountable. As to the dog/cat Mosta killer, 13 animals have been killed so far (and yes, they may have been dead when they were crucified but I doubt they were delivered to his door dead – we just haven’t been told how he is killing them before he crucifies them) and so many killings/crucifixions later, we haven’t moved an inch on solving this case from where we were on day one.
[Daphne – Killing dogs and cats is not a crime. This may come as a surprise to you, but if you think about it, how can it possibly be a crime? All vets would be in deep trouble, for starters. And how can you make killing dogs and cats a crime and not, say, killing chickens or rats? Cruelty to animals does not include killing them, unless it is done with sadism.]
THAT is what is shocking! And the fact that innocent animals are losing their lives in the meantime.
[Daphne – “Innocent animals”. For heaven’s sake. I think you mean defenceless animals.]
A large chunk of our nation has been trying to fight for animal rights for years, Daphne, even when it was highly unfashionable and looked down on, and until this day little or no progress has been seen.
[Daphne – Animals do not have rights. People do, just as they have obligations, one of which is to avoid cruelty to creatures more vulnerable than we are. Cruelty to animals was made a crime by the British colonial administration in the 19th century, and the penalties were punitive. If you browse through newspapers of the period, you will find men prosecuted for whipping a donkey and fined the equivalent of what must have been three months’ earnings. The Maltese, who thought it perfectly normal to be cruel to human beings, mainly children, had nothing to do with it. Get a grip on yourself, please.]
Karrozzini, bird hunting and trapping, animal circuses are but a few examples.
[Daphne – Carriages and carts are pulled by horses the world over. The problem is not that, but the waiting around in the sun. Bird-hunting and trapping are not ‘cruelty to animals’ or ‘animal rights’ issues but environmental issues. It is inconceivable that you do not understand this, or that you can’t see the inconsistency in arguing against bird-trapping on the basis of ‘cruelty’ while ignoring completely chickens and pigeons kept in coops. Animal circuses are a cruelty issue and not an ‘animal rights’ issue.]
It’s been 13 killings and unlike what your article implies, although the media are having a field day attracting attention with articles about it recently, it has not been a priority on the authorities’ lists because this killer is still out there on the loose.
[Daphne – ‘The killer’, ’13 killings’: go easy on the melodrama, for your own sake. These are cats and dogs we are talking about, not human beings or rare elephants (again, an environmental issue). Rats are animals, right? We agree on that. So when I put down rat poison and three days later find five or six rat corpses in the garden, I’m a ‘killer’ who should be taken into custody by the police for rat murder. Deploy a little logic, please. It helps.]
Moreover, someone who is insensitive enough to carry out such acts is only a serial killer (on humans not of animals) in the making.
[Daphne – Exactly. This is not about the animals. Nor, for that matter, is about ‘insensitivity’.]
Whether non-human animals have rights or not is debatable, and a lot has been written by moral philosophers about this. Having rights does not necessarily require having duties, otherwise infants would have no rights.
That said, if dogs have rights, then so would cows and chickens. So the popular belief that many people in Malta are campaigning for animal rights is clearly absurd.
What I find most amazing is people who say they care more about animals (they usually mean cats and dogs) than they do about humans, and then claim they are for animal rights.
The main premise of the animal rights philosophy (irrespective of whether one subscribes to it or not) is that humans are animals. So one cannot logically be for animal rights and then say he cares less about the rights of people.
That said, non-human animals have no legal rights. The laws on “animal protection” were made either for environmental reasons or to cater for human sensibilities. Otherwise, the law would protect all animals equally, and killing a chicken would be murder.
How about all those unborn babies being killed daily? They too cannot defend themselves and seem to have fewer rights than animals. The killing of an unborn human being is not universally considered a crime.
That’s because unborn human beings, whatever that may be, are not persons in the legal sense.
Shall we extend legal rights to all cells?
I thought this video was very relevant to what you’re posting here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuxgAC0dWK4 I love Holst’s cool, calm, and rational approach.