Seán is a human rights defender and search and rescue activist in the Mediterranean, who was arrested in 2018. Since his initial release, he has researched the EU-wide criminalization of humanitarian action and campaigned for human rights in Europe. Seán was found innocent of all 16 charges at the end of a three-year trial in January 2024.
In 2018, at age 24, I spent over 100 days in pretrial detention on a Greek island. If found guilty, I still face a prison sentence that would span into the coming centuries. What heinous crimes am I charged with to deserve this punishment? Being part of a criminal organization, money laundering and smuggling. At some damage to my ego, however, I must dispel any exciting notion that I am a criminal mastermind. My alleged “crime” was nothing more than helping people in distress. Starting in 2017, I spent almost a year coordinating civilian rescue efforts on Lesvos, working with the authorities to provide emergency medical services at sea and on the shoreline. Experts have said that my prosecution amounts to little more than “the criminalization of saving lives”.
But if I am being completely honest with you, that sounds more impressive than it was. I mostly spent my time standing around with a first aid kit in one hand and binoculars in the other. The vast majority of people fleeing war and conflict to seek asylum in Europe are survivors. Even so, the Mediterranean is one of the deadliest seas in the world. As one of the wealthiest continents in the world, when people die in our waters, it is a choice we’ve made. Indeed, instead of offering life-saving humanitarian services, the EU focuses on counter-smuggling and securing our borders. At this point, you may be thinking, “Okay, that sounds depressing, but what has it got to do with me?” Unfortunately, it has everything to do with you: if I can be criminalized for mostly doing little more than handing out bottles of water and smiles, then so can you. Imagine you arrive at the scene of a car accident. You see someone lying on the roadside. They need your help. What would you check first: their pulse or their passport? If, like me, you check their pulse first, you’ve committed the same crime I am supposed to have committed.
If I did nothing illegal, why am I facing these charges? The pull factor. The idea is that, even if search and rescuers are not directly involved in smuggling, they indirectly encourage smuggling by making smuggled journeys safer. This argument is so intuitive. When I first read it, I was in prison reading a FRONTEX risk analysis report, and it suddenly dawned on me: I am guilty! The analysis alleged that rescuers cause deaths through this pull factor rather than saving lives. I was stunned. How naïve had I been? Luckily, I had nothing but time on my hands while in prison, so I could keep reading. Much longitudinal research has been done on the pull factor theory. There is zero correlation between the amount of search and rescue in the sea and the amount of smuggling through it*. There is a correlation between the weather at the departing shoreline and smuggling. There is a correlation between conflict and smuggling. But not between rescue and smuggling.
The EU is trying to stop activities like rescue because it erroneously thinks they are causing smuggling. Ironically, it is EU securitization policies that cause smuggling. Here’s why:
- People try to escape conflict and persecution.
- To claim asylum, one must be in the territory of the would-be host country.
- The EU secures its border, removing safe and easy means of entry.
Well, that leaves only one possible outcome: EU securitization policies drive people fleeing war and human rights abuses into the boats of smugglers.
It’s ironic that a supposed criminal is pining for the rule of law, but I am. What does the law say? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right to seek asylum. The European Convention on Human Rights ensures the right to life. International maritime conventions compel the conduct of search and rescue at sea.
Whether you are on the right or left of the political spectrum, we must all agree that nobody should be abandoned to drown. This should not be controversial. Yet, I often get called one of two things. Either I get very colorful messages from anonymous social media users telling me that I should have left people to drown, that I should drown myself, or, in short, that I am a criminal. Or, I get told by kind and perhaps overly generous people that I am a hero. Both are wrong, dangerous even, for precisely the same reason: by framing the act of helping someone as either criminal or heroic, we imply that it is somehow abnormal. In reality, helping someone in need is the most normal thing to do. Saying otherwise risks absolving us of our responsibility.
But who am I to complain? As the marketing adage goes, all publicity is good publicity. I have been given a platform. All this attention has ensured I can fundraise to pay my mounting legal costs. But the vast majority of people I met in prison who were not only charged with smuggling but convicted of it are themselves asylum seekers. Most of them never got a platform, many hardly received appropriate legal advice, and none of their stories are known.
I remember being transferred from a jail on Lesvos island to a prison on Chios island. The prison was unaware of my arrival, and because it was full, I was placed in Chios jail while the prison cleared a bunk (I was eventually put in a solitary confinement cell with someone being separated from the general prison population). Chios jail is one of the worst places I have ever experienced. It was overcrowded, filthy, and windowless. Parasites were in the bedding. The water fixtures were all broken, and there was hardly enough food.
Even in solidarity campaigns, we tend to privilege some over others. In my few days at Chios jail, waiting to be transferred, I met a man from North Africa. He had come to Chios via Turkey to seek asylum. He’d already been in that jail for three months. What crime did he commit? None. I was told that his asylum application had been unsuccessful, but his return to Turkey wasn’t being planned. So, not knowing what else to do, he was put in jail. I was later told by the few lawyers familiar with cases like his that he would likely go through cycles of prison and homelessness for a long time. He may still be in that jail today, even though he was never charged or even accused of a crime. At least I was charged with a crime. At least there is a process. At least I have lawyers. His crime? Seeking asylum?
*Sources and further readings
“Blaming the Rescuers” by Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani, Goldsmiths, University of London, June 2017. https://bit.ly/3vaBMeZ
“Sea rescue NGOs: a pull factor of irregular migration?” Eugenio Cusumano and Matteo Villa, European University Institute, 2019 https://bit.ly/4376KBm