AYS Daily Digest 18/6/19: How Italian Police started criminalizing sea rescue with Iuventa
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Germany, Digest, Afghanistan, Italy, Refugees

AYS Daily Digest 18/6/19: How Italian Police started criminalizing sea rescue with Iuventa

Feature: “How Italian Police started criminalizing sea rescue” with Iuventa

The above thread continues to explain the events of the 18th of June. Iuventa was 12 to 50 nautical miles off the Libyan coast when the phone rang at 4:20am from MMRC Rome. Hundreds of people are in distress inside Libyan territorial waters but heading towards international waters.

“MRCC Rome, run by @guardiacostiera, is the competent authority to coordinate sea rescues in the Central Med. Seafarers are bound by the duty to assist boats in distress. The MRCC can deploy ships of every kind..”

At 5:44am Iuventa approaches the interception point, but instead of one boat, there are three boats, each carrying approx. 150 people. The Libyan Coast Guard is also there. They remove the engines from two of the boats and presumably bring them back to Libya.

Iuventa continues to hand out life jackets to boats A and B and secures/disembarks boat C.

“7:19am Captain Dariush orders two team members onboard Lilly to cast off and catch the empty Boat C, so the crew can destroy it later on.” “No NGO has the capacity to recover empty refugee boats, so the crews often set them on fire to sink them. State actors and NGOs have agreed on this as best practice in order to avoid floating ghost targets and prevent smugglers from using the boats again for their dirty business.”

Yet an under cover Italian Police officer is hiding in a vessel close by. A picture is taken of Iuventa and boat C and used as evidence that Iuventa was taking the boat back to Libya so smugglers could reuse it.

Photo provided by Iuventa

This is the evidence the Italian prosecutors are using against Iuventa in court; a photo taken completely out of context.

“This is how Italian police started criminalizing sea rescue.” AYS stands in solidarity with all life savers on the deadliest border in the whole world. Please learn more about Iuventa here.

Egypt

An interesting report citing Ramona Lenz, the public relations representative for migration at medico international, talks about how Egypt might be using Syrian refugees in negotiations with Europe.

“Under current President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the government is well aware of the negotiating power that the country’s refugees provide when dealing with Europe. It knows how to take advantage of Europe’s fear of refugees. So Cairo presents itself as a reliable partner to Europe in terms of migration policy and ensures that hardly any refugees in Egypt are able to head for Europe. The EU’s efforts to “stop the causes of migration” are primarily aimed at easing its own financial woes. And it is the refugees stranded in Egypt who are now paying the price for this power game.”

Sea

On Tuesday, Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights issued 35 recommendations, explaining the deficiencies in EU policy to deter migration instead of saving lives on the Mediterranean.

“ They articulate around five main subject areas: 1) ensuring effective search and rescue coordination; 2) guaranteeing the safe and timely disembarkation of rescued people; 3) co-operating effectively with NGOs; 4) preventing human rights violations while co-operating with third countries; and 5) providing accessible safe and legal routes to Europe.”

Find out more here.