[WATCH] Jailing of Turkish mothers condemned by human rights activists, social workers

Human rights activists have called for immigration laws to be changed during a symbolic protest outside the law courts in support of two Turkish mothers jailed last week.

Activists from Graffitti were joined by the Association of Social Workers, the Aditus Foundation and former president Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, who heads Eurochild, to protest the “degrading and unjust” treatment of the two mothers by the justice system.

The women say they were escaping persecution in Turkey and stopped in Malta on their way to Belgium. They travelled with their young children and used false documents.

The women were jailed for six months on passport offences and their toddlers, aged three and four, placed in State care.
Moviment Graffitti activist Mary Grace Vella said the sentence was “a manifest example of institutionalised racism”. She said a number of other more lenient and suitable sanctions could have been meted out by the courts.

Nothing in the law precluded the court from handing down a community-based sanction under the Probation Act in lieu of imprisonment in such cases, she said.

Activists say there are alternatives to jail in circumstances where people are forced to travel with missing or false documentation because of persecution back home

Vella noted that such sentences are routinely utilised for offences, which carry a sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment and for offences that pose more harm to victims of crime and society in general compared to the use of forged documents by asylum seekers.

“It is thus clearly the case, that in such instances, the criminal justice system is being strong with the weak and weak with the strong,” she said.

One of the posters strung up outside the law courts, alongside toys to highlight the childrens’ plight, pointed out the contrast with a community sentence handed down recently to two architects found guilty of the death of Miriam Pace in a house collapse.

Graffitti welcomed the strong position taken by Children’s Commissioner Pauline Miceli, who urged the court to minimise the children’s trauma and harm, in line with the provisions of the Convention for the Rights of the Child, which states that children should only be separated from their parents as a last resort and where it is in the child’s best interest.

Lawyer Neil Falzon on behalf of the Aditus Foundation said human rights law recognises the rights of refugees, and prohibits States from imposing penalties on refugees who enter their territory without authorisation.

“Last week’s case, like so many others before it, is a clear example of Malta flouting its international obligations by arresting, prosecuting and jailing people who claim to be fleeing persecution by their own governments. This is not justice,” Falzon said, adding that the system had to be reformed and hoped that the invitation to dialogue “will not fall on deaf ears.”

Coleiro Preca described the jail term handed down to the women as an “insult towards children”. “This is an obscene decision… it makes me ashamed and worries me,” she said, adding the children were at such a tender age that this trauma will mark them for life.

Coleiro Preca said this was not the way the justice system should treat situations involving children and announced that she will be writing to the Chief Justice and ask for a meeting on the matter.

ADPD want mothers reunited with children

Meanwhile, ADPD chairperson Carmel Cacopardo said in a statement the courts should not have disregarded the fact that the two women were attempting to escape from dangers to their families with the meagre means at their disposal.

Cacopardo reiterated that the two teachers cannot be considered as mere criminals but as persons seeking refuge and asylum for themselves and their families.  

ADPD deputy chairperson Mario Mallia called on the court to remedy the situation and unite the mothers with their children. “Laws stripped of a human dimension end up being nothing more than unjust laws,” he said.