President George Abela appealed for people to maintain Malta’s “true character of hospitality” in his first reaction to the Government’s announcement that it was contemplating deporting asylum seekers this week.
Asked for a comment on the Government’s plan to send a group of Somali asylum seekers back to Libya, a spokeswoman for the President – who, as a lawyer in 2002, represented a group of Eritreans battling deportation – appealed for people “to maintain, even in these challenging times, our true character of a hospitable, welcoming and, above all, humane people”.
“The President feels that this issue of immigration is a delicate and complex matter with no easy solution. The President has, however, full faith in the generosity and compassion of the Maltese nation as a whole.
“Our people are not racists at all and we have a long tradition of welcoming and absorbing visitors from north, south, east and west.”
We have a long tradition of welcoming and absorbing visitors from north, south, east and west
He also appealed for the international community to show tangible solidarity with southern states, which, like Malta, cannot handle the immigration phenomenon on their own.
On Tuesday, arrangements were made for two Air Malta flights to return a group of about 70 asylum seekers who had landed in Malta early that same morning.
The move was blocked by an interim decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which upheld an urgent application filed at the eleventh hour by a group of NGOs defending migrants’ rights and ordered a halt to the deportation while it hears the case.
The action by the NGOs recalled a similar legal battle fronted by Dr Abela on behalf of the Peace Lab, which in 2002 successfully appealed the deportation of a group of 47 Eritrean migrants.
Two years after that action, the Government had come down for severe international criticism following a report by Amnesty International, which said that a number of Eritrean immigrants who were deported a year earlier, had been secretly detained and tortured.
The report had revealed that 220 Eritreans deported from Malta in September and October 2002 were among those who faced torture and punishment on their return.
These had arrived about the same time as those represented by the Peace Lab.
The Government had insisted that the vast majority of the deported migrants had not applied for refugee status while the applications of the rest had been rejected.
Two crucial judgments have since been delivered, one last year and the other barely three weeks ago.
In February last year, the ECHR had ruled that the push-back policy implemented by Italy under Silvio Berlusconi breached immigrants’ fundamental human rights because, among other things, it did not give them the opportunity to file for asylum as was their right under the Geneva Convention.
In the second case, the Constitutional Court concluded just days ago that the deportation of two Somali men by the Maltese government in 2004 was also illegal.