From Sea to Prison: Braving the Waves
‘From Sea to Prison’ Project, 2nd quarterly report 2024
- Introduction
The criminalization of the facilitation of freedom of movement continues in ways predictable enough for a country led by a far-right government. As we show in a piece we wrote for the new issue of Melting Pot’s Controfuoco magazine (link in Italian), these policies are based on a criminalizing narrative that has been built over decades, a narrative that has simply reached new heights with the Meloni government.In the article we highlight how the construction of the figure of the smuggler and of the trafficker has intertwined with Italian and international migration policies, how it has shaped them and, in turn, been shaped by them. We also focus on some moments of strategic and manipulative semantic confusion that contemporary political forces make between these concepts. These choices of language uphold a racist and deadly regime, setting traps that we need to learn to avoid.
Over the last months, we have started to see the consequences of the Cutro decree in the courtrooms, especially for boat captains who survived shipwrecks and death at sea. However, the concrete results of the current government's attempt to increase penalties have so far been ambiguous. As we will show in the next paragraphs, the first trial for article 12bis collapsed, and the entire legal framework that criminalizes the facilitation of freedom of movement has been brought before the European Court of Justice in the 'Kinsa' case. At the same time, an increasingly strong network is forming around a few cases, such as those of the Iranian women detained in Calabria, or the captains on trial in Naples. Even though so many people are still in prison – around 80 of whom we are in touch with – or have been deported, like our friend M., this network and these small victories in court show us that you can still brave the waves.
- The Kinsa Case at the European Court of Justice
On June 18, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice held a public hearing in which it was asked to assess the legitimacy of the European duties to prosecute that underpin the EU directives on the facilitation of irregular immigration. The Court's decision concerns the compatibility of the ‘Facilitators Package’ and, consequently, of Article 12 of the Italian Immigration Act (which constitutes its domestic implementation), with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
This represents a crucial moment, in which the entire legal framework that criminalizes freedom of movement is finally being questioned. We wrote a statement outlining the case (link in Italian), along with the Legal Clinic at the Roma Tre University, co-signed by 20 other organizations engaged on the issue. We hope that the court’s decision in the fall of this year will accept the arguments raised in this referral.
And yet, behind every case of strategic litigation there is a person, and a story. In this case, that person is O.B., a woman from the Republic of Congo who, in the summer of 2019, took a flight from Casablanca to Bologna with her 8-year-old daughter and 13-year-old niece. At the Bologna airport border control, the police discovered that their passports were fake and O.B. was arrested for facilitating the irregular entry of the two minors. Unfortunately, her niece went missing from the reception center where she was placed following her aunt's arrest, and has been missing ever since. We are trying to piece this story together, in the hope that O.B.'s niece is ok.
- Article 12bis: returned to sender.
Last month saw the conclusion of the first trial in which the defendants were accused of the new offense under Article 12bis of the Immigration Act – introduced by the Meloni government after the Cutro massacre – which establishes a maximum penalty of 30 years and a minimum of 8 years in the event of people dying during the journey. The decision by the court in Reggio Calabria came over a year after the arrest of two young men from Sierra Leone, J. and M., who were detained as the boat's captains. We have been in touch with them through letter correspondence, as well as with their relatives and lawyers.
At the final hearing, the charges under Article 12bis collapsed: M. received a sentence of 2 years and 6 months in prison, much lighter than the penalty requested by the public prosecutor, and J. was acquitted of all charges. Although crossing borders should never be criminalized, we are relieved by the good news: M. should be free at the beginning of next year if his sentence is reduced for 'good behavior, and J. is already out of prison.
We hope that this verdict can act as an important precedent for other trials for alleged violation of Article 12bis. Our attention is now turning to the first case in which the accusation was leveled, against 7 people who were arrested in April 2023 after surviving a torturous journey in which a man died, all of whom are still currently in prison. We are in touch with several of the defendants and are following the trial at the court in Locri.
- The 'Libyan Footballers’
Even before the introduction of Article 12bis, staggering penalties have been inflicted on people accused of driving the boats. Horribly, this was the case in 2020, when the court in Catania sentenced 8 young men to between 20 and 30 years in prison for a disaster in August 2015 in which 49 people died from asphyxiation during the journey. The case is also known as that of the 'Libyan Footballers’ (although not all the convicted are either footballers, nor Libyan). Along with other organizations in our network, we have publicly criticized the absurdity of this sentence for years, and the inconsistencies on which the trial was based
We have been exchanging letters with seven of these young men for 3 years now, and none of them have ever given up. They still adamantly declare their innocence and have provided the names of people who could testify in court, who could prove that they were passengers like everyone else on board. Some of these witnesses were heard by their lawyers as part of the defense investigations, which resulted in a request for a retrial lodged with the Court of Appeal in Messina last year. Despite the new evidence gathered by the lawyers, the motion for a retrial was denied . This means the court has not even allowed for the new witnesses to be heard, even though the situation they describe is entirely different from that on which the conviction was based, corroborating the version the prisoners have recounted for years.
The lawyers have taken the decision to the Supreme Court of Cassation, whose we are still waiting for. We sincerely hope that the Supreme Court will heed the defense's arguments and pay proper attention to facts concerning the lives of seven young men sentenced to decades in prison.
- The Deportation of M.
For years we have written about ‘M.’ in our report, a Tunisian citizen who finally finished his sentence in April, after 5 years in prison. Unfortunately, despite years of efforts from a network of people who tried to support him, M. was unable to access parole or house detention before his release, and was immediately transferred from prison to the deportation center in Caltanissetta. It was extremely difficult for him to appoint a trusted lawyer there, as the phone booth – the only way to communicate with the outside world – was not working, and the private company managing the center, Albatros 1973, didn’t answer the phone. Under these conditions M. signed a document, the contents of which were not clear to him, in which he reneged on his asylum request. He later told us nevertheless that in that moment, he would have done anything to end his administrative detention because, after 5 years of imprisonment, he couldn’t bear another day in a cell. Despite his lawyer's efforts, M. was deported to Tunisia a few days later, with an expulsion order and a five-year re-entry ban, and without ever having had the chance to walk as a free man in Italy.
For our own part, our anger at the relentless injustice that the Italian state has inflicted on M. will fuel our work for the next hundred similar cases, as well as our efforts alongside networks demanding the immediate closure of these racist and inhumane centers.
- Marjan and Maysoon, Iranian women on trial
The past few months have marked the start of the trials against two Iranian women accused of people smuggling at the end of 2023, incarcerated in Calabrian prisons immediately upon arrival. Thanks to the combined work of their lawyer and of the network that mobilized around the defendants, the investigating magistrate finally granted Marjan Jamali house arrest, allowing her to reunite with her 8-year-old son, partially alleviating the enormous pressure caused by incarceration and forcible separation. The trial against her, however, continues: the third hearing will take place at the end of October, with the cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses.
Meanwhile, Maysoon Majidi, a Kurdish-Iranian activist, remains in prison, who went on hunger strike for a period to protest against her detention. In a letter she wrote to us about how much weight she has lost, of the suffering she is experiencing in prison. A growing network of solidarity and support is forming around her case as well, including an increasing number of journalists who have already criticized the summary nature of the investigations and the inconsistency of the charges against her. Her trial will begin on July 24th.
- The Captains of Naples
Over the last 18 months, Italy’s war against civil search and rescue ships has taken the form of assigning distant ports of destination, a strategy aimed at keeping humanitarian vessels away from the Mediterranean Sea for the longest possible amount of time. The consequences have been equally predictably and devastating for people on the move. On the other hand, the use of these unusual ports — such as Genoa, Ravenna, Civitavecchia, Carrara, and Naples — has led local bodies – both institutional authorities and self-organized groups – to confront these issues for the first time. In Naples, people from Sudan, Gambia, and Egypt have been put on trial, and a group of lawyers and activists have come together to defend them. We had the pleasure of getting to know them better at the end of June, at the event ‘Noi Capitani!' (‘We, Captains!’), organized by Mediterranea Napoli and ASGI. The participants also included the Legal Clinic at Roma 3 University, and crew members from the Mare Ionio rescue ship , who are currently on trial in Ragusa. It was a powerful and important moment to reaffirm not only the importance of our shared struggle against Article 12 of the Italian Immigration Act, but also to highlight significant openings and opportunities that have emerged over recent months, in Naples and beyond.
Finally, we would like to thank two new funders, the Guerilla Foundation and the Fund for Global Human Rights, for believing in our work and supporting us this year.
‘From Sea to Prison’
A project by Arci Porco Rosso and borderline-europe
