A/HRC/41/44 Suppression and criminalization of those who perform humanitarian rescues of irregular migrants at risk of death at sea 6. There are a number of examples of this type of response to mass migration, especially across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe. The practice of targeting humanitarian groups that make efforts to rescue irregular migrants in distress at sea is, unfortunately, a longstanding one. 2 As far back as 2004, a ship (the Cap Anamur) belonging to a German humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) encountered an unseaworthy vessel in grave danger, carrying 37 African refugees en route from Libya to Italy, and rescued the refugees, thereby saving their lives. Its subsequent request to dock at a port was denied by the Coast Guard. For 11 days, the Cap Anamur sailed the high seas near territorial waters, until it was forced to dock owing to distress on board. The captain and first officer of the ship and the director of the NGO were immediately detained by the authorities on charges of aiding irregular migration. They were, however, acquitted of the charges five years later. 7. In 2007, in the Morthada/el-Hedi case, crew members of two Tunisian fishing boats who had rescued 44 migrants in distress, were detained upon their boats arriving in port.3 The crew members were tried on charges of human smuggling, under the heads of “facilitation of unauthorized entry,” and “aggravating circumstances for organized crime”.4 Although all of them were eventually acquitted either at first instance or by the Court of Appeal at Palermo, this took between two and four years.5 Much more recently, in March 2018, a rescue ship of the Spanish humanitarian NGO Proactiva Open Arms was seized and a human smuggling investigation against its crew was opened after the vessel brought approximately 216 migrants stranded on the high seas into port and refused to hand them over to the authorities of the country of departure.6 On 16 April 2018, a court found that the rescue on 15 March 2018 of migrants off the coast by the humanitarian group had been justified because migrants and refugees faced “grave violations of human rights” in the country of departure.7 However, On 24 April 2018, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal against the seizure of an NGO rescue ship, the Iuventa, impounded in August 2017 following an investigation initiated by authorities into NGOs in the Mediterranean. 8 Prosecution or suppression of humanitarians who assist the entry into a country of irregular migrants (including by transporting them to a border) 8. The Independent Expert considers that this practice is widespread. A statement by a European Immigration Minister in 2008 before the Lower House of that country’s parliament that the provision of even tacit support to irregular migrants was no longer acceptable to the Government and that the Government would investigate means of making “those who accompany and advise asylum seekers … responsible for their acts” is a good example of that tendency.9 Authorities of another country have prosecuted some persons for assisting entry, even when the humanitarian motives of such alleged offenders should have been clear.10 Similar arrests and/or prosecutions have occurred in a number of European countries. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 See Liz Fekete, “Europe: crimes of solidarity”, Race and Class, vol. 50, No. 4 (April 2009). See Tugba Basaran, “Saving lives at sea: security, law and adverse effects”, European Journal of Migration and Law, vol. 16, No. 3 (2014). Ibid. Ibid. See BBC News, 19 March 2018, available at www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43455555. See https://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFL8N1RT4FQ. See www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/italian-court-rules-iuventa-rescue-vessel-remain-impounded180424115151621.html. See Liz. Fekete, “Europe: crimes of solidarity”.. See Liz Fekete, Francesca Webber and Anya Edmond-Petit, “Humanitarianism: the unacceptable face of solidarity”, pp. 53–54. 3