When journalists were allowed, finally, on a sort of “group tour” of the detention centres, shepherded by police in a bus, it was a sudden decision that appeared to be taken in haste and panic. The next day, a delegation from the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee was due to arrive in Malta, and one of the questions they were likely to ask was: “Why aren’t journalists allowed into these compounds?” I rather suspect that the government wanted to be able to reply: “Oh, but they were here only yesterday!”

As it was, members of the delegation did ask the question, and were not convinced by any reply they might have got from the authorities, because they brought it up again in their encounters with journalists. I remarked to myself, on reading about the fuss and commotion, how easy it is for governments to slip into authoritarian mode when they feel they have something to hide.

There is a distinct whiff of Old Labour about the manner in which this government first sought to keep journalists out at all costs, then let them in only – or so it appears – to keep face with a Civil Liberties Committee. Now that the Civil Liberties Committee has been and gone, it’s back to the old “Keep Out” policy.

And then there’s the way that journalists were allowed in that should be put under scrutiny. All that was missing was a loud guide with an orange umbrella, a tour leader with a yellow jacket, and wrist-bands for the journalists. They were taken in, herded briefly around the “public” areas of the compounds, prevented from engaging in a proper conversation with any of the detainees, and then rushed out again, and on to the next detention camp, where the process was repeated.

They did not get to see where the detainees slept or washed, and how they were fed, or the cramped rooms in which they spent most of their time while detained for upwards of a year. Worse still, they did not get enough time with the detainees to hear their stories. So what was the point of the exercise?

The point was to let journalists in but at the same time prevent them from seeing or hearing anything of consequence. They were kept well away from anything that might lead to shocked and shocking reports in the newspapers the next day. And indeed, there were no such reports. The stories written and broadcast by journalists who went on the “group tour” contrasted sharply with the stories in which the words of the Civil Liberties Committee delegation were reported: “shocking”, “degrading”, “disgusting”, “inhumane”, “a violation of human rights and human dignity”, “the sight made me lose my appetite”, and so on.

The reason is that while the police and the government could prevent journalists from going into the sleeping and eating quarters of the detainees (this being Malta, where there is scant respect for the role the press plays in society), they could not similarly prevent the Civil Liberties Committee delegation. It would have looked as though they had something to hide, which is precisely how it looked when they prevented the press from going in.

They still tried it on with the delegation, though, telling them not to take photographs so as to respect the privacy of the detainees. Then, as one of them told a news conference afterwards: “The detainees themselves were begging us to take pictures, to show everyone the kind of squalor in which they are being kept.”

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The need for education in civil liberties is pressing. The island is teeming with people who believe that it is perfectly permissible to keep human beings in cages if letting them out poses the risk that they might “take our jobs” or prejudice our economic situation. When people are obsessed with protecting their interests, and overcome by fear of “the other”, their ability to think rationally becomes blurred and confused.

We think we have no choice but to keep people in cages for months and years at a time, and because we have accepted that we have no choice but to do this, we have ceased to look at alternatives. We have “closed” our minds to any options there might be.

For change to begin, the government has to accept the consensus – not the consensus of its citizens, but the consensus of those from more highly developed societies – that what is happening now is completely unacceptable, that it is, in the words of the Civil Liberties Committee delegation, reported yesterday in the newspapers, “horrible, intolerable and frightening.”

The report prepared by the delegation for the European Parliament describes the Safi compound as a big cage with broken windows and no air conditioning.

I can just hear the scathing comments of my fellow Maltese: “Issa jridu l-air-conditioning? Ukoll!” Perhaps they should reflect on what it must be like to be with 373 other people in cramped conditions, when the temperature hits 40°C in August. Like in the Valletta slums of old, or a Brazilian prison, 20 detainees sleep in each small room.

The delegation’s written report states: “The hygiene conditions are intolerable. Showers are broken and there is no hot water. Toilets have no doors and everywhere is filthy. Detainees are given food in large bowls, from which everyone has to share and eat without any plates or utensils.” It went on to describe how the place is scattered with dead mice and that the live mice run around merrily as though they were “domestic animals.”

Describing Lyster barracks as “frightening”, the report puts on record the fact that there are only two lavatories for 100 detainees. One can imagine – but prefers not to – the situation when 50 people make a rush for the same lavatory at the same time each morning.

* * *

Irregular immigration is now a fact of life. It is pointless bleating, as the government tends to do, that we are not prepared for the influx, which is why people are being treated like goats. This is going to be an ongoing problem and we have to deal with it in an ongoing manner, so the structures have to be put in place to replace the makeshift and haphazard measures that have been used so far.

I am struck by the impression that both government and citizens appear to regard the problem of irregular immigration as something more or less temporary, requiring temporary measures to keep the situation under control. This is an ostrich-like view of things. The problem is here to stay and, more so, it could have been predicted with no much trouble.

It doesn’t take a genius in geography and sea currents to work out that if several thousand people leave the coast of Libya or Tunisia in an attempt at reaching mainland Italy, a few thousand of them are going to get washed up in Malta or Sicily. The “oh, my gosh – hundreds of people have landed” approach to this difficulty is something that I cannot understand.