From Sea to Prison: A Dream of Freedom
'From Sea to Prison Project' - 3rd quarterly report 2024
“I feel better now but it will take some time, I mustn’t forget. I didn’t feel lonely – but there are so many people who are still detained, living in closed cells. We need to help all of them. Those who are on the outside need to help people who are detained find justice. My dream is that everybody will be free.”
– Maysoon Majidi
- Context
The developments over the last few months are complex, and their implications have yet to fully unfold. The trend in recent years seems to show that the prison system in Italy has gradually abandoned any pretense of rehabilitation and social reintegration in favor of increased containment and punishment. At the same time, border control and strategies to criminalize people on the move – as well as those who facilitate their journeys – are becoming increasingly stringent. Since the establishment of the Meloni government, containment and criminalization strategies in Italy have multiplied, from the opening of new detention centers for asylum seekers in Sicily to the creation of a new center in Albania, up to the new repressive measures introduced with the proposed law n. 1660 — approved by the Chamber of Deputies and currently under review by the Senate — which includes harsh penalties for protests in administrative detention centers (CPR) and prisons.
At the same time, Italy is dedicating considerable effort to international diplomacy to forge new agreements, both with EU and non-EU states, in an attempt to influence the policies of the Von Der Leyen-led European Commission. From the United Kingdom to Germany, from France to Finland, Italy has become a model for "migration management" for governments of various political alignments. The model that Italy falls back on in this context is always that of anti-Mafia investigations – of which it claims to be the foremost expert. As highlighted in the anti-smuggling plan launched during the G7 talks in early October (of which Italy holds the presidency this year), the increasingly dominant idea is to apply investigative and criminalization techniques developed by anti-Mafia prosecutors, framing "smuggling networks" as the latest frontier of organized crime. This approach calls for "following the money" and intercepting suspicious communications that could be part of organizing journeys to Europe. It is within this context that the criminalization of captains and smugglers is spreading, impacting even the internal borders of the Schengen area. We can also see it on both sides of the English Channel under the motto "smash the gangs" and in Germany, which has closed its borders and initiated legal proceedings against nearly 2,000 people for smuggling since the beginning of the year.
At the same time, within the remit of the Piano Mattei, Italy is investing in bilateral relationships that solidify the dual link between development funding and migration control, for example through the recent 'Italy-Libya Business Forum.'
It is in this context that the news arrived that 728 websites used to promote travel to Libya and Egypt have been shut down, and that repressive strategies against people on the move in Tunisia are escalating. Kais Saied, Tunisia’s newly re-elected president, has proposed a bill to increase penalties for those who facilitate border crossings, even without profit. Since the establishment of the Tunisian Search and Rescue zone in June 2024, Tunisia has multiplied sea interceptions—and arrests—and continued mass deportations of black people at its land borders with Libya and Algeria. This crackdown has also included Tunisian activist groups and NGOs that support people on the move. In May, authorities raided a number of such organizations , making arrests on accusations of "criminal association with the aim of facilitating the entry of people into Tunisia." Some journalistic sources noted that these raids occurred just days after a series of bilateral meetings between senior officials of the Italian and Tunisian governments, drawing a connection with the 2023 Memorandum of Understanding between Tunisia and the EU (promoted by Italy), which agreed on a payment of 105 million Euros to curb irregular migration. Similarly, over the past year, Egypt has carried out raids, arrests, and mass deportations of Sudanese refugees fleeing the civil war, coinciding with the most costly Memorandum of Understanding ever signed with the EU in March 2024, again aimed at migration ‘management’.
These developments are crucial to understanding the decrease in arrivals by boat in Italy, and simultaneously, the decline in arrests made on charges of facilitation here. In August, the Italian Minister of the Interior announced that the police had apprehended 40 scafisti (boat drivers) and 78 trafficanti (smugglers/traffickers). As we have mentioned before, the categories used by the police to describe criminalization are imprecise and confusing: the term trafficantican easily encompass acts of solidarity at the border, which also fall under the application of Article 12 of theImmigration Act. That said, the figure of 40 people detained following landings broadly aligns with our monitoring of the arrests as reported in local news coverage.
Yet people continue to cross borders. The growing number and severity of conflicts spreading across the world—from the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s carpet bombing in Lebanon, to the civil war in Sudan that is generating hundreds of thousands of displaced people, not to mention the ongoing dynamics of neo-colonial extraction that primarily oppress African countries—highlight more than ever the absurdity of expecting that people might stop needing or wanting to migrate. The acts of repression carried out by Italy and other countries in response to these movements are nothing other than manifestations of a global authoritarian drift, which we hope to one day describe to future generations as aberrations that were fought against and defeated.
From within this space of resistance, below we share updates about some of the cases we are following, and on which we feel it is important to maintain a high level of attention.
2. The Cassation Court Rejects the Request for a Retrial for the Ferragosto Massacre
On Wednesday, October 16, a hearing was held in the Cassation Court (Italy’s supreme court) for one of the ‘Libyan footballers’, who was arrested along with seven others upon their arrival in Italy and accused of being smugglers, resulting in sentences of 20 and 30 years. The appeal was filed against the decision of the Court of Appeal of Messina, which had deemed inadmissible the defense's request for a retrial, despite new exonerating evidence presented on behalf of the young men. With anger and sorrow we learned that the Court of Cassation rejected the appeal. Even though it is now clear that the original trial against the eight was rushed and flawed, the Italian judicial system has so far refused to acknowledge this or provide the guarantees stipulated by Italian law. We express solidarity with the detainees and their families, who continue to fight for their freedom. We will remain by the side of the eight, who continue to endure a grueling legal ordeal and have already spent a third of their lives behind bars.
3. Maysoon Majidi has been released from prison, but the trial continues!
The release of Maysoon Majidi, a Kurdish-Iranian activist detained since the beginning of this year, has brought immense joy to us and to the entire network that has rallied around her case over the past months (including NGOs, politicians and local activist groups). We wanted to express deep admiration for Maysoon’s strength and determination, for the struggle she carried out from within, and for the efforts of her defense team. We now look forward to the final hearing on November 27, with hopes that it will uphold the decision hinted at by the release order.
In the meantime, however, on November 12th, her co-defendant, Ufuk Akturk, was sentenced to 8 years and 4 months imprisonment and a fine of €1,600,000 (link in Italian), a sentence higher even than that requested by the prosecution. Akturk insisted that he alone drove the boat – thus helping free Maysoon – and that he did so as his only way of fleeing Erdogan’s regime in Turkey.
On Monday, October 28, Maysoon Majidi attended the hearing of Marjan Jamali in solidarity. Marjan is another Iranian woman arrested under Article 12, a story we have also told in our previous reports. We are not only demanding the immediate acquittal of Marjan Jamali but also of Marjan’s co-defendant, Babai Amir. Their next hearing will be on December 16. Freedom for all!
4. Trials for Article 12bis
In September the court in Reggio Calabria filed the grounds of the judgment for its important sentence in relation to Article 12 bis, the crime introduced by the ‘Cutro’ decree, which establishes sky-high sentences for the “facilitation of illegal entry” of migrants when, as an undesired consequence of this action, one or more people are wounded or die. The court decided that, even in a case in which it is proven who has driven the boat, or has facilitated migrants’ entry in some other way, the maritime disaster cannot be attributed to them automatically. Instead, it needs to be shown that the captain had foreseen the disaster and that they had a possibility of avoiding it – which is certainly very difficult to determine given the conditions in which someone can find themselves driving a boat. We sincerely hope that this sentence represents a first step in clarifying, on a juridical level, that those responsible for death at sea are not the captains of migrant boats.
We are currently following two further trials for Article 12bis.
The first case in which the crime has been contested is still ongoing in the Court of Crotone, a trial against five Egyptians and two Syrians. We have followed the case since the start thanks to the collaboration of some of the defense lawyers. The first trial should conclude in December. We hope that the court will take into due account the statement given in court by the captain of the boat who explained that he drove the boat in a situation of necessity, enabling dozens of people to escape from persecution by Libyan militias.
We are also closely following the case of a maritime disaster in which ten people died from suffocation. Two people are on trial, both from Egypt: an adult in the Court of Agrigento, and a teenager in the Juvenile Court in Palermo. Here again they are accused of Article 12bis. In the Court of Agrigento the prosecution’s witnesses were heard months ago, while the pre-trial hearing for the teenager only took place on 23rd October, on request of the defense. The witnesses’ accounts, who were onboard, revealed how the boat was in a situation of extreme danger and, due to the overcrowding on board – a situation that cannot be attributed to the Egyptian teenager – the migrants located below deck couldn’t come up for air.
5. The Parallel Trials for the Cutro Shipwreck
Twenty months have passed since the disaster of Cutro, when 105 people were killed by Italian and European border policies, including the captain of the Summer Love, Bayram Gulen. Five of the survivors are currently in prison, accused of facilitating illegal immigration. The sentencing of Gun Ufuk to 20 years in prison and a €3.000.000 fine– which will be re-heard in the Appeal Court on 20 November – has been joined by the sentencing of Abdessalem Mohammed in July. He also chose a shortened trial and received the same sentence, which applies on top of the 4 years of detention for a similar accusation relating to a landing in Puglia in 2021.
The full first degree trial, instead, continues against Arslan Khalid and Hasab Hussain (two young men from Pakistan) and Sami Fuat, a Kurdish national. In September, Khalid’s brother took the stand, stating how his father in Pakistan had paid the organizers of the journey and showed the court the phone messages in which Khalid asked for the payment to be completed once the boat was in sight of the coast. Furthemore, both prosecution and defense witnesses confirmed that Khalid went back into the water to try and save people in distress.
Another important contribution was made by Gun Ufuk, heard this time as a witness and not the accused. On the one hand Ufuk confirmed – in accordance with the defense’s hypothesis – that Khalid and Hassan were merely passengers who paid like everyone else. On the other hand, he also denied any involvement of Sami Fuat, maintaining that the Summer Love had been managed exclusively by Abdessalem and Bayram.
Sami Fuat, instead, drew on his right to not respond to questioning during cross examination, but simply underscored his Kurdish nationality, singing a Kurdish song in court. His deteriorating mental health – a fact already observed since the start of the trial – warranted his lawyer to request the court to provide a psychiatric assessment, which the court refused.
At the last hearing on November 6th, the prosecution requested 18 years in prison for Hassab, 14 for Khalid and 11 for Sami. The final defense statements will be given on 20 November.
In the meantime, the investigations into the authorities’ responsibility for the death of more than 100 people have come to a close, and resulted in the identification of 6 people in the Customs Police (Guardia di Finanza) and Coast Guard as potentially responsible. The messages exchanged between the officers in the two state bodies show that everyone knew that the boat had migrants on board even before the shipwreck took place, and that the mutual delegation of responsibility from one to another only slowed down the necessary rescue operation. How is it possible that two people have already been sentenced to a life in prison before the dynamics that led to the shipwreck have been clarified, and considering that Frontex, the Coast Guard and the police still need to publicly respond for their actions?
6. Network
Together with the Legal Clinic of ‘Roma 3’ University, we organized a panel at ARCI’s Sabir festival: “The Kinsa Case: An opportunity to Dismantle the Criminalization of Migration.”
This was an important moment to discuss and update each other – along with different organizations we work with – about a case that was brought to the Italian Constitutional Court in 2022 and is now being heard in the Great Chamber of the European Court of Justice. The Court is being asked to evaluate the compatibility of the Italian and European norms that criminalize freedom of movement with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The panel was part of a broader campaign aimed at spreading the word about the case and the impact this case could have on trials in Italy and Europe, especially in case of a positive decision, representing a first step in dismantling the criminalization of migration in Italy. The Advocate General provided his opinion last week, which we partly welcomed.The Court’s decision should be issued in the first months of 2025. In Palermo we organized a meeting together with ELSC and Voci nel Silenzio on the criminalization of Palestinians and of the pro-Palestinian movement in Italy, in the remit of which we presented the case of 3 citizens from Gaza arrested in Catania in May 2023. As we have reported previously, we are following the trial closely, and we hope that at the next hearing on November 22 the court will finally decide for their acquittal and full freedom.
The cover image of this report is a drawing of them made at the last hearing.
From Sea to Prison
‘From Sea to Prison’ is an activist initiative by Arci Porco Rosso and borderline-europe. Since 2021, we monitor the criminalization of migrant boat drivers in Italy, and offer socio-legal support to the criminalized. We would like to thank the Guerilla Foundation, the Fund for Global Human Rights, Sea-Watch and the Safe Passage Fund for choosing to support this cause and our work.
