ALTERNATIVE LEGAL SUPPORT FOR CRIMINALISED PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
People on the move are often arrested and imprisoned for driving boats bringing people to Europe. They are accused of human smuggling, often without access to adequate legal assistance, information about their basic rights, or any form of support. The ‘Captain Support’ Network is a platform in solidarity with those accused of driving the boats to Europe, and to connect them to local support networks and lawyers. You can reach out for support by sending us a private message. Activists and volunteers will reply by providing helpful information and connecting people to lawyers and social support if needed.
What is Captain Support?
Over the past years, all over the EU and its externalised borders, thousands of people have been arrested and put on trial for exercising freedom of movement or for facilitating it. This process of criminalisation is the systematic result of racist laws and bordering practices, and it often affects the lives of criminalised people all over their lifetime.
❗️If you or a friend or a family member has been arrested on the charges of “facilitating illegal immigration”, contact the Captain Support network via Facebook and Instagram to ask for adequate legal assistance and support.
Campaigns
The criminalisation of people on the move is too often invisible, and their voices are silenced through detention and imprisonment. This invisibilisation and silencing allows the authorities of the EU and it’s Member States’ to further violate their rights and to exercise the worst violence on them, even after their release.
Free Pylos 9
Nine Egyptian survivors were arrested and charged with smuggling, aggravated by the deaths of passengers, causing a shipwreck, irregular entry, and forming and membership of a criminal organization.
Free El Hiblu 3
In Malta, three African teenagers stand accused of terrorism.
Free Homayoun
Homayoun Sabetara, a migrant fleeing Iran, was arrested by Greek authorities in Thessaloniki after having driven a vehicle across the Turkish-Greek border.
Decriminilize Facilitation
As a group of activists based mostly in Europe, we stand in solidarity with all the people criminalised for facilitating freedom of movement, and towards all the people on the move.
Captain Support
This video informs about European practices to criminalize people for driving boats to Europe and about the rights of the accused and the other passengers.
Update and News
- Free Homayoun and all Criminalised People on the Move!As the appeal trial of Homayoun Sabetara approaches on 24 September, the Captain Support Network together with the undersigned organisations urgently call for his freedom and for an end to the systematic criminalisation of migrants under Greece’s broad anti-smuggling laws. In his original trial in 2021, Homayoun, a migrant fleeing Iran, was sentenced to 18… Read more: Free Homayoun and all Criminalised People on the Move!
- 17 June 2024: Great victory in SamosOn 17 June 2024, two young men from Sudan and a man from Afghanistan who entered Greece with his wife and baby were on trial in Samos. They reached Greece on 10/01/2024 with a rubber dinghy. Upon arrival, they were arrested and charged with the unauthorised smuggling of 38 third-country nationals into Greek territory. However,… Read more: 17 June 2024: Great victory in Samos
- 19.2.2024 Samos: At least M.A. is out of prison yetM.A. reached Greece with his family on 10 September 2023 in a rubber dinghy. He is from Aleppo (Syria) and is in danger there because he is wanted by the Syrian authorities. However, he, himself a protection seeker, was charged with facilitating the illegal entry (smuggling) of 48 other protection seekers into Greek territory because… Read more: 19.2.2024 Samos: At least M.A. is out of prison yet
