Malta supports resolution calling for protection of pro-choice activists

Malta’s newly-appointed MP to the Council of Europe, Naomi Cauchi, has voted in favour of a resolution that expresses concern on harassment and violence perpetrated by anti-abortion activists in member states.

The resolution concludes the report by a Dutch MP to the Council’s parliamentary assembly PACE, which is composed of national delegations of MPs. It is not connected to the EU’s European Parliament.

The Standing Committee, in which Cauchi replaced Maltese chair of delegation Cressida Galea, is convened twice a year to act on behalf of the PACE when the latter is not in session.

The resolution adopted unanimously, supported by Labour MP Naomi Cachia, calls on member states to take the necessary measures to prohibit anti-choice organisations from misrepresenting themselves as neutral, and to investigate and prosecute online and offline hate speech targeting human rights defenders or pro-choice activists, politicians as well as people seeking an abortion.

In the study by Dutch MP Margreet de Boer preceding the resolution, Maltese pro-choice activists reported being targeted on social media with posts depicting their faces, publishing their names and calling them “murderers, baby-killers and the like”.

“Pro-choice politicians and activists face verbal abuse and actual hate speech, particularly online on special media and through direct messages, with cases of severe intimidation, including death threats,” De Boer said.

“The activists I met highlighted that the harassment and the other forms of pressure against them come from individuals and movements that aim not only to hinder access to abortion care, but also more generally to undermine the progress achieved over the last decades in women’s rights and gender equality, including the rights of LGBTI people.”

The adopted text underlines that these activists are harassed through stigmatisation of people seeking abortions, psychological pressure at or near medical facilities. intimidation, online and offline insults, and judicial harassment of pro-choice activists, and threats against healthcare professionals or undue pressure in the workplace from peers or superiors.

According to the parliamentarians, the violation of the respect to private and family life is a phenomenon that is eroding the right to abortion as “part of a wider attack on women’s rights”.

PACE called on member states to ensure actual access to abortion, where provided for by national legislation, and to guarantee that any obstruction “is prohibited and criminally sanctioned”, stressing that conscientious objection should never restrict actual and timely access to abortion.

PACE advocated the creation of “buffer zones” for healthcare facilities to avoid the disruption of their activities, in which all anti-choice protests would be prohibited. It also said that it was essential to protect healthcare professionals from threats and any pressure or retaliation.