Editorial
The point of no return
According to Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, Eritrean migrants were recently subjected to violence by Libyan police, leaving several of them seriously injured.
Libya denied accusations that it was mistreating the Eritreans who had been turned back at sea by Italian patrols and handed over to the Tripoli. Who is telling the truth? We may never know.
What we do know is that on May 6, 2009, for the first time in the post-war era a European state ordered its coastguard to forcibly return migrants at sea without screening them to determine whether any passengers required protection or were particularly vulnerable.
According to a Human Rights Watch report, the Italians disembarked the exhausted passengers on a dock in Tripoli where the Libyan authorities immediately apprehended and detained them.
Since then the number of African boat people arriving in Malta via Libya has gone down drastically. Before last week, not a single black migrant had landed on our shores since October. Many are of the opinion this is a statistic worth celebrating.
Why should we bother about those who fled war-torn Somalia through the Sahara only to end up incarcerated in Libya? Why should we care when African immigrants are a burden on our social security system, our soldiers, and, according to some misinformed voices, threaten our 'values'?
For too many or us, refugees and asylum seekers are a hindrance - people who should have never left their home country in the first place. Some cannot understand the concept of a refugee and refuse to acknowledge that international law actually permits them to flee their countries 'illegally'.
Several EU states have simply ignored the controversial Libya-Italy pact on immigration, the same way they failed to show solidarity with immigration-burdened states like Malta.
The so-called push-back policy promoted by this pact is a cause for concern, since such a policy can be justified only if it were applied to those who have no right to asylum. Considering that half of those reaching Italy and Malta by sea are eligible for protection, alarm bells should be ringing.
Humanitarian organisations, the Church, even former President Eddie Fenech Adami, have all warned that the push-back policy is likely to breach immigrants' fundamental human right to ask for protection. Our government should not support this, not even tacitly, even if the country is 'benefitting' from the Libya-Italy accord.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi mystified many last week when he flatly turned down calls to hold an independent inquiry into whether the army acted correctly during a rescue operation in which 27 migrants were sent back to Libya. Fifty-five Somalis rescued from a sinking dinghy last Sunday were divided into two groups while at sea - with 28 being brought to Malta and the rest taken to Libya.
The army said those who boarded the Libyan boat did so voluntarily, but the claim was disputed by migrants who spoke to The Times. A properly-conducted inquiry would have established the facts. As things stand, it seems strange that immigrants who have paid thousands of euros to take the trip, and risked their lives to flee Africa, would voluntarily board a boat back to where they came from.
However, there is little public will to establish these facts. Where immigration is concerned, many conveniently forget notions of solidarity and Christian love and instead choose to concentrate only on the burden inflicted on the country.
Yes, fewer migrants reduces problems for the army, detention centres and the taxpayer. But at what cost to human rights?
19 Comments
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Sean Grima
Jul 27th 2010, 11:35
it is easy for people to think with their emotions - or should that be prejudice? - and say that these immigrants are illegal because they arrive without a visa and should thus be repatriated .what they conveniently omit to mention is that maltese law also protects the right to seek asylum - even if a migrant has arrived illegally. if the government sends them back, it would be violating maltese law.
all other conjectures of social upheavel and economic considerations, besides being, at best, arguable on their merits, are irrelevant: it is the law which counts.
Charles Alamango
Jul 26th 2010, 08:38
This tragic situation is too much a burden on the Maltese in general be it moral or physical. On one side we have our moral values which dictate us to help and on the other we the moral obligation to protect our country and future. Our dillema is: are all the illegal immigrants genuine refugees or as many claim just running from their country for a better future?? The latter is what is killing us, I personally used to be sorry for them, but when one sees their attitude and more so not appreciating and respecting OUR values one tends to start viewing them from a different angle. We should adopt the way Switzerland treats the illegal immigration system which forces the original country to take responsibility once it's established that the illegal immigrant does not qualify as a refugee. We still have a long way to go but let us not forget our obligation to our country and most of all to the future of our children.
Joseph Cauchi
Jul 25th 2010, 17:59
What’s going on in Malta and especially in the E.U. with all this attitude of encouraging the influx of illegal immigrants to our shores, by certain politicians, church leaders and journalists?
Are we only motivated by EMOTIONS and heart-breaking stories, whether real or perceived and not by COMMON SENSE and WISE decisions; by seeing the whole scenario of the situation?
Are we all becoming INSANE and not realising that we are unknowingly shooting at our own feet by turning our TINY country into an African concentration camp and making the local Maltese inhabitants, a thing of the past?
Malta should not be used in this scheme as the Maltese deserve better!
All Patriotic Maltese should rise and make a stand against all those forces that are encouraging and helping all those illegal immigrants, albeit unwittingly, by turning Malta into an African concentration camp!
Let all the Maltese citizens open their eyes, before it is too late!
JC.
Sean Grima
Jul 26th 2010, 12:23
the decisions are motivated by the respect for the rule of laws, which includes the right to seek asylum.
louise Vella
Jul 25th 2010, 16:50
"According to Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, Eritrean migrants were recently subjected to violence by Libyan police, leaving several of them seriously injured."
And how would Hammarberg, a Swedish do-gooder activist, know what is happening in Libya? Is Libya a member of the EU? He obviously is repeating information transmitted by some other of the do-gooder community and he is just repeating what he's told. A lot of this information has only one source and is then repeated by the network of do-gooders. As a Swede Hammarberg is more likely to know what happens in Sweden. Does he know that Sweden has sent 550 illegal immigrants back to Malta after they escaped to his so-called paradise of human rights? Let him speak about Sweden before libya and Eritrea.
Sean Grima
Jul 26th 2010, 12:23
probably in the same way as you seem to know that africa is a paradise-on-earth.
Joseph Cauchi
Jul 25th 2010, 16:44
There is a concerted effort by the local media, especially The Times to promote and defend the illegalities committed by the illegal immigrants irrespective of whether such illegalities affect negatively the Maltese people!
Why is this campaign being orchestrated against the interests of Malta?
I am absolutely baffled!
Gone are the days when one was proud to be called “PATRIOTIC”!
JC.
Sean Grima
Jul 26th 2010, 12:25
the Times deserves credit for having the courage, in this as in many other occasions, to stick up for what is right, irrespective of what people think. patriotism has nothing to do with it - opposing immigration is pure xenophobia.
Joe Gauci
Jul 25th 2010, 16:24
It appears that as is being said by many commentators, the only solution to this illegal immigrants crisis or as it has been called by none other than the Prime Minister himself as an invasion is to send all illegal immigrants back to their own countries to sort out their difference among themselves and not bring their difference and problems with them to us.
Sean Grima
Jul 26th 2010, 12:29
that solution, as i have repeated ad nauseam, is impossible, unless one chooses to ignore the right to asylum, which amounts to ignoring maltese law.
charles philip zammit
Jul 25th 2010, 16:04
well done mr editor for expressing your views about human beings who are being pushed back to a country from which they have forked out their whole hard earned savings to try and escape from. if they really wanted to settle in libya they wouldnt have risked their lives and squandered their whole earnings to see the last of its shore. recently it appears that ghaddafi was able to put berlusconi in his pockets with his petrodollars and things have gone for the worst for the poor illegal immigrants as dylan calls them. we or better still gonzi having no clearcut policy have even stooped lower than his italian counterpart. he acted only in the desperate attempt to rob a fistful of racists votes. yes in the short run gonzi might benefit but in the long run it will turn on him. he will be condemned even by international bodies. this policy will backfire as has happened recently with sarkosy who has put the blame on all evil in france onto the small community of roma. beforehand such tactics bore him fruit but not anymore and that what will happen to our gonzi.
Emanuel Cilia Debono
Jul 25th 2010, 15:23
'However , there is little public will to establish these facts. Where immigration is concerned, many conveniently forget notions of solidarity and Christian love and instead choose to concentrate only on the burden inflicted on the country.'
Malta did not initiate the push-back policy. Some E.U. States openly condemn it but do not care for the problems that irregular immigration generates for countries like Malta which are too small to cope with them alone.
Allow me to say that it is cheeky to question the sense of Christian values for which the Maltese are traditionally well known.
Should Malta promote a state of irregularity which tends to benefit human traffickers more than anybody else?
Evarist Saliba
Jul 25th 2010, 13:39
This editorial raises a number of pertinent questions which, however, should be addressed, primarily, to the international community represented by the United Nations, its pertinent international bodies, the European Union and the African and Middle Eastern countries themselves. Malta is but a bit player in this international problem, and by all accounts, it is fulfilling its role, proportionately speaking, on an equal, if not a higher level, than most other countries.
50 percent of the irregular/illegal migrants who reach our shore qualify for protection, and this is given to them. The other 50 per cent do not. What is to happen to them?
May I make it clear that I am not one of the 80 percent of the respondents who want these people to be pushed back, but I amone who believes that encouragement of this movement
is also encouragement of an illegal trade in human beings, at great danger to the migrants and great profit to the organisers.
louise Vella
Jul 25th 2010, 13:18
"A properly-conducted inquiry would have established the facts."
Should the government hold a 'properly conducted inquiry' every time the words of Somali illegal immigrants contradict the words of the Armed forces of Malta? If so, we might as well disband the AFM and replace them by AFS - the Armed Froces of Somalia, helped by a few Maltese do-gooders.
wally vella-zarb
Jul 25th 2010, 12:08
"As things stand, it seems strange that immigrants who have paid thousands of euros to take the trip, and risked their lives to flee Africa, would voluntarily board a boat back to where they came from."
Is it not also strange that, if conditions in Libya are as atrocious as some people would have us believe, these migrants somehow still manage to put away enough "thousands of euros" so as to finance their illegal voyage to what they consider an El Dorado?
Joanne Micallef
Jul 25th 2010, 12:00
The only real solution would be to have refugee applications processed in one of the many safe African countries, by doing so ONLY those eligible for a refugee status will make it SAFELY to Europe . It’s the only win win situation, as in todays dire economic climate no European country wants to be burdened further by ILLEGAL migrants.
Sean Grima
Jul 26th 2010, 12:26
the right to asylum is not protected by libya, it is a right they can only claim when they arrive in malta. since asylum is a right granted by law, once they apply for it, they are here legally.
Louise Vella
Jul 25th 2010, 11:47
“At what cost to human rights? But what cost human rights?
The Maltese too have human rights – women, children, LGBTs, prisoners, etc. Have we solved all the human rights problems of us Maltese? Why give priority to the human rights of Somalis over those of the Maltese? Charity begins at home. Besidest solving Maltese human rights problems is limited to 400 000 people. It’s doable with good will and lots of time.
The human rights of Somalis, Eritreans and others involve uncounted millions of people. Can Malta – or indeed Europe – be held responsible for what happens in these countries and import millions of them to Europe to save from the tragedies of their own countries?
Sweden, the self-appointed champion of human rights – gave Malta a practical lesson by sending us back 550 illegal immigrants who had escaped from Malta. Obviously Sweden does not appreciate being considered a paradise for all African illegal immigrants and fears that the whole of Sweden might become like Malmo.
This has been understood by the ordinary people of Malta. In the current online poll on timesofmalta.com over 80% vote in favour of sending the illegal immigrants back to Libya.
Sean Grima
Jul 26th 2010, 12:22
the arrival of migrants is in no way detracting from any of our fundamental human rights.