“There is an urgent need for Malta to revisit its immigration detention policy”, says the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) in a report published on Wednesday 10 March.
This text concludes a visit by Council of Europe experts organised from 17 to 22 September 2020 to a series of establishments: the Marsa Initial Reception Centre, the “Hermes Block” (Lyster Barracks), the Hal Far Reception Centre/”China House”, the Safi Detention Centre, the Floriana Police Station and the Zejtun Police Station. They denounce the living conditions, the lack of guarantees as to the regularity of procedures, the treatment of vulnerable groups, not to mention the specific measures for Covid-19, which can be assimilated to “inhuman and degrading treatment”.
The immigration problem in Malta is not new and will continue, the CPT warns. “Therefore, Malta together with the support of the European Union and other Member States must put in place an immigration detention system which abides by European values and norms”.
Link to the report and the response of the Maltese authorities: https://bit.ly/2Ohs9pv and https://bit.ly/3t77FyA (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)