Over 32,000 people have signed a petition calling for the Refugees Commissioner to grant asylum to the two Libyan pilots who defected to Malta in their jet fighters instead of obeying orders to bomb civilians.

“Refugees Commissioner Mario Guido Friggieri has not yet made clear whether the pilots will be granted asylum. If the pilots are sent back to Libya, they will likely be executed,” the petition on www.change.org, set up by a grassroots Libyan group called Enough, says.

The granting of asylum would “save their lives and encourage more pilots and ship captains to refuse to attack civilians”, the activists say.

They added that this would be the “only right thing for Malta to do”.

They say fleeing to Malta gives such pilots a third option when faced by the “unimaginable” choice of either killing civilians or being executed for refusing orders.

The petition has only been up for two days, receiving over 1,000 signatures an hour.

Commenting on their petition, the group said they had managed to reach the official spokesman for the Justice Ministry, who acknowledged the petition was raising “a lot of international attention”.

Ministry spokesman Darrell Pace said he could not comment on the case because the Refugee Act prohibited anyone from speaking about a case until it was decided.

“So, at this stage, it will be difficult for me, the commissioner or the minister to comment about this specific case... All I can say is the request is being assessed according to its merit.”

He said the process was “pretty clear in our law and follows the Geneva Convention”, adding the maximum time period for deciding on asylum is one year.

“But I don’t think that will be the case here. It’s more a question of a few weeks or months.” The group said the comment was an “important first step” because it showed the government was aware of the petition and was feeling “pressure” on the matter. It pointed out the asylum procedure was guided by the Geneva Convention. “This should, in theory, mean they will eventually be granted asylum given their circumstance.”

The pilots defected on February 21, drawing huge international attention as the first evidence of the Libyan protesters’ claims that they were being bombed by fighter jets. The pilots have not yet spoken out, despite Libyan protesters living in Malta calling on them to tell their story.