Call for resumption of talks by illegal immigrants committee

Fr Dionysius Mintoff, OFM, director of the Peace Lab of Hal Far, said yesterday that the Amnesty International report on the torture inflicted on a number of Eritreans who were repatriated from Malta last year had proved the Peace Lab right that Eritrea was not a safe place as the government had maintained.

Addressing a news conference, Fr Mintoff said that another group of 65 immigrants from Eritrea who had landed in Malta in March, 2002 had not been repatriated only because the Peace Lab filed a warrant of prohibitory injunction against their being flown out of the country.

The Peace Lab had also filed two cases against the government, one calling for a fair hearing to the immigrants' appeal for refugee status and another claiming the government would be failing in its duty if it repatriated the immigrants. The 67 immigrants had applied for refugee status and had been refused and they had also lost their appeal. They claimed they were not given a fair hearing.

Fr Mintoff appealed to the government to see that these immigrants would not suffer unduly after they had been held in detention for one and a half years.

He also insisted that a committee set up between the authorities and NGOs to discuss issues of illegal immigrants should start holding talks again after it stopped meeting last October.

Fr Mintoff felt that the open centres at Hal Far should truly become open centres. When asked, he said that most of the immigrants held at open centres had a job and although there were a number that earned a good wage others earned a pittance because they were exploited.