Human rights group lambastes Malta's immigration policies

Malta's immigration management policy has been heavily criticised in a damning new report following a fact-finding mission to Malta last February by the International Federation of Human Right Leagues (FIDH).

The federation, based in Paris, represents 116 human rights organisations in nearly 100 countries and coordinates and supports their activities while providing them with a voice in the international arena. A Maltese organisation, the Malta Association of Human Rights, is a member of the federation.

During a press conference launching the Malta-report, one of the mission leaders, Catherine Teule, said one of the biggest problems in Malta is that it adopts a "policy of non-integration". She said that asylum rights are virtually systematically refused on the island and when authorisation is granted "the foreigner is very often sent to the border".

She accused the Maltese authorities of "latent xenophobia and racism, typical of countries which do not have a tradition of welcoming and sharing".

Ms Tuele also criticised the EU over what she described as lack of solidarity.

Ms Tuele said her organisation's mission was carried out in Malta between February 21 - 26. FIDH decided to investigate Malta following appeals by various organisations on what she termed as the alarming situation of asylum seekers.

The report comes down particularly strongly against what is called as "the Maltese policy of systematically detaining all illegal immigrants in closed centres, which are overpopulated, dirty and ill-adapted for long term detention".

The FIDH feels these exceptional measures, for which justification is claimed by the Maltese authorities due to the urgency of the situation, "are no longer reasons enough for the absence of human or material investment, which would enable the migrants to be treated in full respect of their dignity".

The report, entitled Locking Up Foreigners, Deterring Refugees: Controlling Migratory Flows In Malta, states that due to its geographical location, Malta has seen a lot of foreigners arrive on its shores since the late 1980s. As a result, the FIDH recommends that the Maltese authorities "set up a different system for receiving immigrants than placing them in administrative detention by generalising the use of open accommodation".

The federation said there were no response from members of the government and from the Speaker to letters requesting meetings with the members of their mission. It said, however, that its delegation met people such as Charles Buttigieg, the Refugee Commissioner, Mgr Philip Calleja, from the Emigrants Commission, representatives of UNHCR in Malta, members of the Jesuit Refugee Service, various lawyers and detainees at the open centres. It said its delegation was not allowed to enter the detention camps.

In its report, the FIDH also made recommendations to the EU over the situation in Malta regarding illegal immigrants and said the Union should take urgent ad hoc measures. These can be an order to "provide a special dispensation to the application of the 'Dublin' regulation by discharging Malta of the responsibility of handling an asylum application from a foreigner who would have left Maltese territory after submitting the application and transferring the handling of the application to the authorities of the country where the seeker wishes to present or to allow people recognised as refugees or whose humanitarian status is recognised in Malta to settle freely and legally in another member state".

The Dublin regulation is a mechanism, established by the Council of Europe, related to asylum seekers and their application for asylum.

The report urges the EU to "decide expressly on the allocation of specific credits so that Malta can receive refugees and displaced people in conditions conforming to the respect for people's dignity and with fairness and so that it can withstand the consequences of this reception".

The president of the European Parliament's committee on civil liberties, Jean Louis Bourlanges expressed his surprise at the situation described in the Malta report, criticising the "lack of solidarity" within the EU. This was also shared by the president of the European Parliament's sub-committee on human rights, Helene Flautre, who welcomed the publication of the report. She said the report "encourages an urgent reflection on the requests by countries which are called upon to act as buffer between us and the world's misery".