Never mind the impracticality of your dreadful suggestion. Few people can understand how awful the conditions in the camps are so your proposed 24 hour extensive CCTV coverage would probably backfire.

If you are worried about your own safety, I suggest you train those cameras on your own home, person and possessions. That would be far more effective protection that spying on somebody else.

Secondly, we should really be ashamed. Turkey has recently brought its criminal procedural rules in line with the rest of the EU countries (mind you, all EU countries offer legal assistance and this not just at the interrogation stage, but from the very moment that a person is taken into police custody). That means that a non-EU country is actually catching up with the EU mainstream while Malta is lagging way behind (can you believe this?). Furthermore, this implies that our criminal procedural laws/practices are not only incompatible with the ECtHR’s pronouncements but run counter to the ECHR (Convention) wording in Article 6(3)(c) and the structure of Article 6 taken as a whole.

This issue was also raised in Xarabank of the 31st October 2008 to which the Police Commissioner replied that the presence of a lawyer during interrogation could mean that the ‘solving rate’ of cases would be diminished and one must bear in mind that an unsolved case is at the detriment of the victim – convenient excuse, in my opinion. In simple terms, this blatant injustice will continue and all will be swept under the rug until…. someone with enough courage (in order to refrain from saying the ‘b’ word) will take the matter to the ECtHR.

I am willing to forgo a part of my civic liberties, no problem, but the area around the detention and the open centres should be covered by extensive CCTV coverage and broadcast on a 24 hour public TV channel to enable all Maltese to see what is happening in their own country.

My democratic rights are safeguarded by the duties of the Maltese government which was not elected by the illegal immigrants! It is my duty, and every Maltese citizen has this duty, to support our government’s efforts in dealing with the problem of illegal immigration. Look what happened in Lampedusa the other day: the illegal immigrants just broke the fences of the detention centre and went ran amok in the city centre. This has already happened in Malta and might happen again next summer. What will we do then?

[Daphne – You can always run for your life and lock up your women. 24 hour CCTV? Might as well tag them electronically and get them to wear yellow stars. And there’s no city in Lampedusa. It’s not much more than rock with some people on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampedusa%5D

If you bothered to read between the lines – or actually read the lines themselves – you’d see that there’s a distinction between detention, arbitrary or otherwise, and the conditions in which detainees are kept. You may even realise that the word ‘conditions’ is not limited to the physical state of detainees’ place of detention, but to the actions (and inaction) to which detainess are subject, and to the powers exercised by those with control over their fate while the detainees themselves are denied a means of redress.

You appear to be pleased that immigrants are corralled and kept out of sight. You fail to realise that means your rights are corralled too. One day you may wish to exercise them and find that you are unable to do so. Where would be your sentiment then?

One should note that humane accommodation does not mean others would be enticed to come. No matter how humane it may be, detention will always mean being locked up in a cage. No one wants that.

[Daphne – Yes, but lots of people can’t see that. They imagine that ‘comfortable’ captivity is something worth dying for when you’re a subhuman African, because you’re not much better than an animal.]

I allowed myself a quick glimpse the other day – some are so narrow-minded that they do not even realise the difference between a citizen representing his/her country and a person representing the UN; and ridiculously called for the UN representative in question to take the ‘immigrants’ back to her country (Spain).

Having a forum where these ‘Horsemen’ can have their monologues would be no problem really. However English happens to be the language in use and – this forum being accessible to ALL internet users is creating a situation where anyone stumbling on timesofmalta.com (which happens much more frequently than anyone would imagine) will get the impression that Malta is a nation of racists…or are we?

Oh by the way, this is not just a spontaneous Sunday rant. I felt impelled to leave this comment after someone I know recently formed just this opinion of Maltese people after stumbling upon an article on timesofmalta.com. Giving a bad name to Maltese people, all in the name of free speech! If not moderating comments from Tom, Dick and Harry (..and Louise), maybe timesofmalta.com should consider restricting the viewing of posted comments only to registered users.

[Daphne – Arbitrary detention is the operating name of the UN working group that was here to report on the situation in those places where people are kept locked up. In the case of people rescued from the sea, or who have come here through force of circumstance while heading for Italy, detention is definitely arbitrary, because they are detained for up to 18 months before the authorities investigate their case. It is a form of imprisonment without trial. They are not even being held on court-mandated remand. As for people rescued and brought in to Malta, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to disabuse you of the notion that they are illegal immigrants. If they are brought in by the armed forces, then they can’t possibly be considered to have entered the country illegally. Some commonsense would not go amiss.]