By Fr Joe Borg
At the point of writing, this website is reporting that, according to informed sources, the authorities have booked an Air Malta plane to ferry migrants to Mitiga airport in Tripoli at midnight and 4am.
It is shameful of Dr Muscat to play the bully with irregular immigrants." This is not push-back, it is a signal that we are not push overs," Dr Muscat told reporters.
Is he doing this because his ratings plummeted in the past few weeks? If the answer is in the alternative Dr Muscat can rest assured that this dastardly act – if executed – will increase his popularity but it will stain his hand with blood.
These irregular immigrants have the right to be regularly and scrupulously screened to see whether they have the right for humanitarian protection or whether they can be recognised as refugees. The way this is being handled shows that these rights will be trampled on.
Lino Spiteri writing in The Times of Malta of yesterday expressed the issues succinctly and strongly:
“The humane aspect first: it would be completely wrong to contemplate, let alone to execute, pushing back boat people to their place of origin.
It is time the EU saw the peripheral member states as fellow members deserving understanding and assistance with boat people
First of all, they are people in distress, entitled to solidarity from fellow humans. Secondly, they are desperate. They risk their lives on the cruel sea in the hope of finding acceptance and better circumstances in Europe. That is their destination, the mainland, not Malta or Lampedusa.
A cynic will say, so what? Whatever the humane logical reasoning, we end up hosting hundreds of them. Such reasoning is natural.
It is also wrong. The discussion should be about a humane way forward. That is why I do not agree with Joseph Muscat’s suggestion of pushing back in extremis.
Frankly, I do not believe he can mean it, both as a Christian and as a social democrat. I believe that he is taking a political stance to try to make the European Union budge from its rigid final decision.”
Will the Prime Minister this evening show us that he is neither a Christian nor a social democrat?
One expects the leader of the Partit Nazzjonalista to take a very strong stand on the matter. A half-baked statement is not enough. It will cost the PN votes, but getting votes is not the only – or main thing – that political parties exist for.
But more than anyone else I expect our Bishops also to take a very strong public stand. Just saying that they are certain that our politicians know Malta’s international obligations cuts no ice. One hopes that our Bishops will be courageous enough to follow up the prophetic stance taken by Pope Francis yesterday. This is the time for them to show leadership and moral courage.