According to the report prepared by Amnesty International in 2007: “Malta maintained its automatic detention policy for irregular migrants. On arrival they are held in closed detention centres for up to 18 months and later transferred to open centres. The policy clearly violates international human rights laws and standards. Migrants were detained without first having a proper medical screening, potentially putting the health of other detainees and detention centre staff at risk. Non-governmental organisations and journalists were still not allowed access to migrant detention centres.
“Four administrative detention centres for asylum-seekers and migrants were in deplorable condition and failed to meet legally binding international standards, the EU Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs reported in March. A delegation of the Committee, visiting four detention centres, found that the Ħal Safi detention centre ‘was like a cage’, without sheets on the beds, broken and dirty mattresses, and no heating. Hygiene conditions were intolerable, with broken showers, no hot water, and toilets without doors and in a state of disrepair. At the Ħal Far centre, delegates found high levels of mosquitoes and rat infestation, and appalling conditions in bathrooms. Some residents who had fled the Darfur region of Sudan said their asylum applications had been rejected on the grounds that ‘they could have moved to safer areas of the country’. At the Lyster Barracks centre, there were only two functioning toilets for more than 100 people, no provision of sanitary towels for women, and no area outside for fresh air and exercise, the Committee reported.”
Since that time the Justice Ministry has assured the public that conditions of detention have improved. But with large parts of these centres still effectively closed to any form of scrutiny, such claims are impossible to verify.
We ask the minister responsible to answer the following questions:
1. Why are non-governmental organisations and journalists still not allowed access to migrant detention centres?
2. What concrete steps have been taken since 2007 to improve the detention centres?
3. What is the use of keeping persons locked up for 18 months when the status of such persons should be (and often is) clear within much shorter time?
4. What steps have been taken to ensure that the status of migrants is established within a reasonable time?
The way we take care of “strangers” in Malta is an indication of our true moral state.