Intolerance, racism and xenophobia are the enemies of civilisation and not refugees, Laura Boldrini, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said yesterday.
"There is a sense of insecurity, which is based on facts, but we cannot allow it to take over," she said, asking: "What is a society without diversity?"
The September 11 terrorist attacks in the US together with last year's attacks in London have made living in harmony very difficult and have also given rise to racism all over Europe, she said.
Every society is at risk of harbouring sentiments of intolerance, racism and xenophobia and Malta is no exception, Ms Boldrini said.
She referred to a number of articles in the international press, especially in British tabloids, that depicted refugees and asylum seekers in a bad light.
"We need to make a major effort to counter attack these feelings by giving people real information about refugees and asylum seekers. It is imperative for the public to know the refugees' stories, to remind them that they are humans just like us."
This need to urge people to look at refugees as humans is at the basis of a campaign launched by the UNHCR. It includes adverts showing eight well-known personalities - including psychologist Sigmund Freud, physicist Albert Einstein, singer Marlene Dietrich, footballer George Weah and gymnast Nadia Comaneci - when they were children. All the personalities were refugees.
Alex Tortell, policy coordinator at the Ministry of Social Solidarity, said: "It is important for people to meet up with refugees in their daily lives. Hopefully, in the long term, such human encounters will help break down the walls of prejudice, suspicion, fear and racism".
Ms Boldrini said that unless a country integrated refugees within society it would be losing out on an important resource. Refugees, she added, do not want to be assisted for the rest of their lives but wanted to be independent.
Malta's small size led to serious concerns based on reality. However, she continued, Malta is also a rich country and so it can attempt to integrate a number of refugees within society.
Ms Boldrini said the whole of Europe was concerned with the issue of illegal immigration and refugees. The UNHCR estimates there are over 2.2 million refugees in Europe and more than 3.3 million seeking asylum.
The senior protection assistant at UNHCR Rome, Jurgen Humburg, said that seeking asylum was a human right. Countries had to take into account the consequences of any action they took, including rejecting people at borders or expelling them.
While the UNHCR is there to protect asylum seekers, it does not endorse any type of abuse of the asylum system. He said the agency was not against repatriation but preferred voluntary repatriation.
Ms Boldrini said the UNHCR had not been asked to be interviewed by the judge investigating the incidents at Safi barracks a year ago and expressed surprise that the agency had been mentioned in the report.
Facts and figures
¤ There are more than 4.3 million people in Europe who fall under the competence of the UNHCR.
¤ At the beginning of 2004 there were over 2.2 million refugees in Europe, 1.8 million of whom were in the 25 European Union countries.
¤ In 2004, Malta had 1,230 requests for asylum and 176 refugees.
¤ According to the 1951 Geneva Convention, a refugee is a person who is not in his country because of a well-founded fear of persecution because of his race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, and is unable or unwilling to return to his country because of fear of persecution.
¤ Refugees have the right of protected asylum and should have at least the fundamental rights enjoyed by other foreigners living in that country, and in some cases the same rights as citizens.