Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Opinion

Italy's criminalisation of migrant rescue: the luventa case

  • The crew of the Iuventa are are charged with "facilitating illegal immigration" over rescues carried out between September 2016 and October 2017. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison (Photo: Facebook - Jugend Rettet)
Listen to article

Italy's new government has launched a fresh assault on non-governmental rescue groups that save lives.

While the rhetoric is sharper and some tactics are new, successive Italian governments have tried to block groups who rescue migrants at sea, including with criminal charges.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Judges have thrown out all charges in all cases except one: an ongoing trial of members of the Iuventa crew and two other rescue groups. The case, currently listed for a further preliminary hearing on 19 December, shows the lengths to which Italian authorities are willing to go to stop rescue groups from saving lives at sea, with worrying implications for the rule of law.

Since 2017, successive Italian governments have repeatedly condemned rescue groups, imposed a controversial NGO "Code of Conduct," delayed and refused to let survivors on these ships land, and attempted to prosecute such groups on spurious charges of abetting "illegal migration."

Within days of coming to power, prime minister Giorgia Meloni's government tried to get away with the "selective disembarkation" of only some of the people on board two rescue ships and flat out refused to allow a third to dock. The interior minister wants to authorise provincial officials to impose hefty fines and order the seizure of non-government rescue ships.

So far, Italian courts have limited authorities' attempts to discredit and disrupt rescue groups. Judges have cancelled fines, lifted ship seizures, and exonerated sea rescuers of wrongdoing.

The prosecution of the Iuventa crew and others from three rescue groups is the only ongoing case, after the Italian authorities invested huge financial resources, involved five police agencies, and dragged on the investigations for almost five years.

The accused are charged with "facilitating illegal immigration" over rescues carried out between September 2016 and October 2017.

If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison. Among them are four Germans from the crew of the Iuventa, a rescue ship operated by the group Jugend Rettet, which rescued 23,810 people between July 2016 and August 2017, when it was seized by the Italian authorities. The group has been unable to operate since then.

The case has been marred by prejudicial publicity against the accused, unreasonably lengthy investigations, illegal wire-tapping, problems accessing interpretation and translation of incriminating evidence and other procedural irregularities that together raise concerns about the defendants' access to a fair trial.

After three security officers for a private company with ties to the far-right who worked on the Vos Hestia, another rescue ship, contacted Matteo Salvini, then a member of the EU Parliament, alleging that the Iuventa crew might have colluded with smugglers, the Italian police planted an undercover operative on the Vos Hestia and wiretapped crew members. The bulk of the evidence against the Iuventa crew consists of observations from the Vos Hestia.

A meticulous investigation by Forensic Oceanography analysed available visual, audio and technical information and produced coherent computerised reconstructions that persuasively refute the prosecution's allegations against the Iuventa crew. Their analysis demonstrates that the Iuventa crew did not return empty boats to smugglers or in the direction towards Libya, nor did they communicate with anyone potentially connected with smuggling networks.

One of the main security company witnesses disavowed his testimony in media interviews, saying that he never actually witnessed any collaboration between the Iuventa crew and smugglers.

The preliminary hearings have been marred by breaches of legal procedures and repeated adjournments.

Non parli Italiano?

Defence lawyers have raised concerns about the failure to employ a competent German interpreter for hearings and interrogations and the prosecution's refusal to provide German translations of crucial documents.

Questioning of a Iuventa defendant had to be suspended three times, including most recently on 2 December, due to serious problems with the translation. The prosecution has repeatedly failed to notify the defendants in a timely way of hearing dates and details of the charges against them, breaching procedural rules and causing adjournments and delays.

Concerns about the defendants' access to a fair trial have been so serious that a coalition of international groups has started monitoring the hearings. The UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, described the case against Iuventa crew as a "baseless prosecution" of sea rescuers "purely assisting those in need" and recommended dropping the charges.

This trial is a crucial test for the rule of law in Italy.

Unless the prosecution takes positive steps to ensure the defendants' right to a fair trial, it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that the Italian authorities are willing to sacrifice the rule of law as well as common decency in their desire to punish people for saving lives.

Author bio

Giulia Tranchina is a Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

EU Commission suggests need for new charity rescue boat rules

EU Commission says it has no proposal and is not the competent authority, but that talks with the International Maritime Organisation are needed to create "specific framework and guidelines" for NGO boats rescuing people and bringing them to European shores.

EU Commission cannot stop Italy banning rescue boats

The European Commission says it is powerless to stop Italy from banning charity rescue boats entering its territorial waters. The statement follows moves by the new government under Georgia Meloni to further crack down on the Mediterranean Sea rescues.

Crotone shipwreck triggers police vs coastguard blame game

As the body count continues to rise from the Crotone shipwreck off the Calabria coast, authorities in Italy are looking for who to blame. At least 68 people are now confirmed dead, including children, after a 20-metre boat sank.

Creeping civil society curbs threaten rights in Europe in 2023

The threat to civil society organisations protecting human rights now not just from Russia, Turkey, Hungary and Poland but also from elected governments in states whose democracies appear healthy, such as France, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Column

EU's Gaza policy: boon for dictators, bad for democrats

While they woo dictators and autocrats, EU policymakers are becoming ever more estranged from the world's democrats. The real tragedy is the erosion of one of Europe's key assets: its huge reserves of soft power, writes Shada Islam.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us