Disobedient migrants put in 'confinement'

A UNHCR delegation was shocked on Thursday to find 11 men cooped up in a tiny, dark and unventilated room at the Lyster Barracks detention centre after allegedly trying to escape.

The officials from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees visited the detention centre while they were in Malta in connection with the 51 migrants who were stranded on a Spanish trawler.

Paolo Artini and Neil Falzon said they were "shocked" to see how the men, of various African nationalities, were accommodated.

Mr Artini, who was clearly livid, told Maltese and foreign journalists later that the room was no bigger than three metres by two-and-a-half metres and had no windows or light source.

"The psychological stress on these men is incredible. I've never seen anything like it," the Spanish official said.

The detainees told the UNHCR that they had been locked up for between three and five days. One of them allegedly even tried to commit suicide but was stopped by the other detainees.

The immigrants were not told for how long they would be locked up, the UN officials claimed, calling on the government to scrap the detention system altogether and instead set up a more modern system of open centres.

The impression that this is a routine punishment. They even have to urinate in a plastic bottle using a funnel as they cannot go to the toilet whenever they like," Mr Falzon said.

As soon as they saw the immigrants' conditions, the UN officials complained to Lt Col Brian Gatt, who is responsible for the detention services, insisting that such conditions were unacceptable.

Through the Home Affairs Ministry's official channel, The Sunday Times asked whether migrants were really being kept in such confinement, whether this was standard disciplinary procedure and if so, whether it was regulated and by whom? Was it clear to the migrants what kind of disciplinary measures they faced if they broke the rules by, for example, trying to escape?

Lt Col Gatt said there were no facilities for solitary confinement within detention centres. He did say, however, that there was a facility that was used for the purpose of "removal from association".

"This is occasionally used to hold violent immigrants until they have calmed down. Immigrants who try to escape or who are caught after they successfully escape are also accommodated within this facility until their identity has been confirmed. Presently there are no immigrants accommodated in this facility," said Lt Col Gatt.

Lt Col Gatt was rather irked that the UN officials had recounted what they saw to the press, confirming that the UNHCR officials had spoken to him after their visit to the detention centre.

Lt Col. Gatt insisted that the detention service was not above public scrutiny because the UNHCR, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Peace Lab and other NGOs, including migrants' lawyers, were regularly allowed into the closed centres.

"When the press visited the centres I took you around all places, and you have seen for yourselves that we have no dungeons and no torture goes on in here," he said.

The Sunday Times could not verify the claims made by the UNHCR or the detention services because of the government's decision to bar access to the media. Barely a month ago, the International Coalition on the Detention of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants urged the government to set up an independent mechanism to monitor conditions inside detention centres according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Article 11 of the convention calls on states to "keep under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction, with a view to preventing any cases of torture".

Established by law under the Prisons Act, a Board of Visitors appointed by the President is allowed to make regular inspection visits to the Corradino prisons to report on the conditions inside A similar mechanism for detention centres is inexistent.