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Karl Schembri
Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg turned down the appeal made by European Commissioner Franco Frattini to allow journalists inside immigrants’ detention centres, less than 24 hours since the latter made his wish public in a press conference with the Maltese minister.
Frattini said on Thursday afternoon that he recommended to the minister to allow journalists inside detention centres as long as they respected the privacy and security of asylum seekers, in contrast with Borg’s total media ban despite a petition signed by the absolute majority of Maltese journalists and editors.
Immediately after Frattini’s press conference, MaltaToday sent a new request to the minister to be allowed to enter the Hal-Far detention centre where Armed Forces of Malta soldiers beat up asylum seekers last January, but the reply received on Friday indicated that Borg was keen on persisting with his policy of secrecy.
“In conformity with the government’s policy, no individual visits by journalists to detention centres will be allowed,” Borg’s spokesman, Joe Azzopardi, insisted.
In fact, the minister believes journalists should be allowed into detention centres only “in exceptional circumstances” – the definition of which is totally vague and arbitrary, especially in the light of last January’s exceptional beatings and this summer’s exceptional influx of immigrants.
Instead the minister intends staging collective excursions for journalists to immigration centres, similar to the prison tours he organises occasionally after some refurbishment to the Victorian jail of Corradino.
“The ministry will issue an invitation to all media for a general visit to closed centres in due course,” Azzopardi said, without committing himself to a date.
The United Nations refugee agency, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Amnesty International and other human rights agencies and organisations have repeatedly slammed Borg for refusing access to journalists in detention centres and prisons through his policy of a blanket media ban.
karl@newsworksltd.com
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