Stop Jailing People for Saving Refugees’ Lives in the Mediterranean
A prosecutor in Sicily has charged twenty-one people, including the crew of the Iuventa migrant rescue ship, with aiding illegal immigration. The potential long jail terms show how European countries have criminalized aid for refugees — and how little they care about the thousands who drown in the Mediterranean.
Twenty-one people face jail for helping to save the lives of refugees on the Mediterranean Sea. (Flickr)
In spring 2019 Italian prosecutors opened an investigation into Miguel Roldán, a Spanish firefighter. A potential two-decade sentence was attached to his crime — namely, aiding drowning people. One of a number of such investigations into aid crews, it was part of a long war pursued by Europe’s reactionaries against refugee rescue operations.
Italy took a leading role in this, not least under the pugnacious Il Capitano — the far-right Matteo Salvini, the country’s interior minister until the end of summer 2019. Rescue captains Carola Rackete and Pia Klemp were also arrested that spring, joining two hundred fifty people arrested for similar offenses including the mayor of a small Italian town.
That autumn, Ursula von der Leyen entered the European Commission presidency. Her opening speech appeared to be a continent away from Salvini’s rhetoric. She belonged to a German government who had rendered more than its fair share of humanitarian assistance. The refugee crisis was a shame upon the continent, she said. And she had skin in the game, having personally adopted and cared for a young Syrian refugee. She was cited as an example of how the right-wing populist tide could be halted across the world.
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