[attach id=260813 size="medium"]Eighteen foreign inmates at Corradino have started a hunger strike.[/attach]
Eighteen foreign prisoners went on hunger strike yesterday in protest over what they claim to be discriminatory treatment in respect to Maltese inmates.
They are insisting that it is unacceptable they do not have equal access to integration services and parole.
A Home Affairs Ministry spokeswoman confirmed that a hunger strike started yesterday at 11am and said: “The foreign prisoners have absolutely the same rights in every aspect as the Maltese prisoners.”
She said the prisoners on hunger strike had put forward three requests: that they benefit from an amnesty longer than the 100 days recently given by the Government; that the fines given to them by the courts be forgiven; and that they should be allowed to remain in Malta once they complete their jail term.
She said the prison director was in contact with the inmates and a doctor was monitoring their health.
George Busuttil, from NGO Mid-Dlam Għad-Dawl, which works with prisoners, said that foreign inmates suffered from a form of “prison poverty”.
We, foreign inmates, have decided to carry out hunger strike, because of injustice that all the foreigners are suffering in Malta
They did not have relatives in Malta to provide them with clothes or money to buy items in jail. Apart from that, he said, they were excluded from benefiting from parole since the law states that inmates with a removal order could not benefit. He also said the majority did not have access to drug rehabilitation services.
Meanwhile, yesterday, Times of Malta received a three-page letter from the foreign inmates explaining why they felt the need to resort to a hunger strike.
“We, foreign inmates have decided to carry out hunger strike, because of injustice that all the foreigners are suffering in Malta… With due respect, we, the foreign inmates in CCF [Corradino Correctional Facility] Malta are saying enough is enough!” the letter in broken English read.
It complained they were treated differently to Maltese accused.
For example, when a Maltese person was found guilty, the court took into account the clean conduct sheet and gave a reduced punishment. But this did not happen with foreigners as “no one cares about checking if they ever had a criminal record anywhere”.
In the letter they also complained about the lack of integration programmes for foreign inmates and the much too lengthy jail terms that were given, longer when hefty fines were converted into time behind bars.
They also complained about the lack of proper medical treatment and said many of them had filed requests to continue their jail term in their own countries but these requests were turned down.
“We are fed up with empty promises… The former government promised parole but their tenure finished and nothing happened… The present Government came up again with 100 days of amnesty, only to give 67 days,” the letter read.
When asked about this, the ministry spokeswoman explained that the 100-day pardon was granted on the full prison sentence prior to the deduction of remission that was not guaranteed but had to be earned.
“When the remission is computed on the remaining sentence, automatically, the inmates benefitted from approximately 67 days pardon,” the spokeswoman said.