Open Arms case, NGOs: “Who are the illegals? Saving is not a crime, preventing it is”

“This process is not only an important step for the civil fleet or those involved in sea rescue, but for the restoration of the rule of law in our country”. Today it is in Emergencyreturning from one of the last missions in the Mediterranean on Life Supportbut in August 2017 Rossella Miccio she was one of the psychologists on board the NGO ship Open Armswho together with the rest of the crew and 147 castaways for nineteen days could only watch the land from afar. By order of the Ministry of the Interior, at the time in the hands of Matthew Salvinithe ports for the ship of the Spanish NGO of the same name remained closed. “I hope that this painful affair will be brought to a conclusion, with the recognition of the responsibilities of those who kept 147 people on board who only needed to disembark in a safe port”.

The ANM of Palermo: “Uncomposed reactions from government representatives”

edited by the Politics editorial team

September 15, 2024

For the current Minister of Transport, the prosecutor’s office has requested six years, while the world of the civil fleet followed step by step, in the courtroom or online, the prosecutors’ indictment. “We can only echo the prosecutor, who has underlined that the defense of people’s rights comes before the defense of borders. This must be the guiding moral and legal principle in the context of sea rescue”, comments the spokesperson of Sea Watch Italia, Georgia Linardi. “This trial could mark a before and after in the criminalization of sea rescue. It could be a way to affirm that there are no human beings of series A and series B, therefore double standards in the application of rights”.

It is a common sentiment in the world of the civil fleet. “Regardless of how the trial on the merits will end, it is important that the principle that rescue is a duty and preventing it is a crime is re-established,” he explains. Valeria Taurino of Sos Méditerranée – The central Mediterranean is a mass grave that continues to expand, also due to 8 years of policies of criminalization of rescuers and blocking of rescues”.

Today there is no NGO involved in the civil fleet that has not had to fight to free its own ship, blocked in port by a detention for one rescue too many or on the basis of the reconstructions – often false, the judges have established in more than one case – of the Libyan Coast Guard. The trials against the sea taxi NGOs, starting with the so-called Iuventa case which collapsed after a preliminary hearing that lasted years, have crumpled up one after the other.

In Ragusa there is one left, perhaps the last one. Luca Casarinihead of mission of Mediterraneanis one of the rescuers still under investigation. “Who are the illegals? This indictment focuses on the real issue of these years. Is it possible that those who save people are on trial and not those who drown them, who make deals with Libya, who ensure that they end up in concentration camps in Libya?”, asks Casarini. The protests of the League, which with its members denounced the alleged political nature of the indictment, he observes, “only demonstrate that they are afraid. I think it is not a trial against Italy but a trial against what dishonours Italy: doing violence to the defenseless, violating human rights and letting people die at sea”.