The government's reply to the report of the European Commission on Racial Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe does not mince its words. The Executive Summary at the very beginning of the reply says that ECRI's report "falls short of accepted standards of impartiality and is unconvincing in its claim that it was drawn up by ECRI... A close and attentive reading indicates that ECRI did not independently verify second-hand information provided by a few militant NGOs".

The most obvious - indeed, hilarious - proof is that the ECRI mission failed to visit the detention centres and still managed to criticise them at length and in detail. It even affirms that "since its last report, progress has been made" without having visited the detention centres either in preparation of the last report or of the present one. The chapter of the government's reply on "Anonymous sources: Pervasive bias" gives very detailed proof of the way these so-called international reports are written.

ECRI's report has some 30 references to anonymous sources and unnamed NGOs, hidden behind such phrases as: "reported instances", "they reportedly reflect a tendency", "there is reported to be" and "according to civil society groups". The question that comes automatically to mind is: Who wrote the report, ECRI or Maltese NGOs?

Many of us belong to NGOs of one kind or another, but we also keep our feet to the ground. We know that our interests are limited to our favourite subject or past time and we do not expect the whole Maltese nation to follow our dictates. I do not doubt that the NGOs that defend refugees and illegal immigrants are well-intentioned. But they should learn, like the rest of us, that Malta's interests are broader than those of any one pressure group.