Although the country retains its policy of immediate detention for irregular immigrants, there has been no detainee who has spent more than 18 months in such centres, Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg said yesterday.

Speaking at a debate organised by the Studenti Demokristjani Maltin at the University, the minister said that everyone has the right to the freedom of expression and it is unacceptable to suffer violence because of opinions expressed.

He said that immigration is indeed an emotive and complex subject and there is no “hard and fast” solution to the problem. One had to continually seek the middle ground to balance and redress the situation.

Minister Borg said that the country guaranteed the right of protection to all refugees (who never amount to more than five per cent of migrants) and to those who are eligible for humanitarian protection.

He said that we have a moral and legal obligation to these people, adding that we started being faced by a mounting immigration problem only after the year 2001.

The minister explained that for every immigrant that arrives in Malta, 140 arrive in Sicily and 200 in Germany, so the ratio of immigrants compared to the population is much higher for us.

He said that the government has introduced various measures to speed up the application for refugee status, including the creation of a special appeals board and the fact that vulnerable persons (children and pregnant mothers) are released after just a few weeks in a detention centre.

Other speakers at the event were Alternattiva Demokratika chairperson Harry Vassallo,

Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil, representatives from Amnesty International, the European Federalists and Moviment Graffiti.