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*First Published on Initiative of Lawyers and Jurists for the shipwreck of Pylos Update on the progress of the judicial investigation into the deadly Pylos shipwreck (1/11/2023) As already known, on 13 September 2023, 40 survivors of the deadly shipwreck, which took place off the coast of Pylos on 14 June 2023, filed a criminal…
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Since 2018, the number of people crossing the English Channel on ‘small boats’ in search of safety has risen year on year. As others have argued, including elsewhere on this blog, this is a manufactured ‘crisis’ of the British government’s own making. Decades of securitisation in the juxtaposed controls in Calais have continually forced people…
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An important aspect of bordering processes in Italy is to criminalise the facilitation of migration. The first notable instances date back to the 1990s, when people were fleeing political unrest and economic crisis in Albania. It is in these years that the term “scafista”, a derogatory term to describe migrant boat drivers, or captains, was…
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In 2002, EU Directive 2002/90/EC obligated each EU Member State to make it a criminal infraction to intentionally facilitate the unauthorised entry or transit of a person across a border – notably whether or not that person received any financial or material benefit to facilitate the crossing, and whether or not that person was a…
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In the early morning hours of 14 June 2023, the overcrowded fishing boat “Adriana” sank in international waters around 50 miles from the port of Pylos, Greece. Hundreds of people drowned under the watch of the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG). Nearly all of the 104 people who managed to survive were rescued by a luxury…
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Homayoun Sabetara, a migrant fleeing Iran, was arrested by Greek authorities in Thessaloniki after having driven a vehicle across the Turkish-Greek border. Following an unfair trial in a language foreign to his own, on 26.09.2022, Mr. Sabetara was then sentenced to an 18-year prison sentence for alleged smuggling. Mr. Sabetara was reportedly coerced into piloting…
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From Human Rights Legal Project: Original article here Incredible news: for the first time in Greece, the Court acquitted 2 of our clients for the offense of facilitating the illegal entry of third country nationals, due to them receiving refugee status. The Court accepted our claims and applied Article 2(c) of Law 4251/2014 not only…
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Survivors demand an effective investigation *reposted from Refugee Support Aegean Athens, September 14, 2023: Forty survivors of the deadly shipwreck in Pylos filed yesterday a criminal complaint against all responsible parties before the Naval Court of Piraeus. The survivors, represented by the Network for Refugee and Migrant Rights, the Hellenic League for Human Rights (HLHR), the…
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Forty survivors are part of the suit alleging Greek authorities failed to protect the lives of those on the fishing boat that capsized in June, killing hundreds. By Katy Fallon *First Published on Al Jazeera Athens, Greece – Three months after one of the deadliest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea in recent years, a lawsuit has been…
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Questions to the Coast Guard regarding the posting of dozens of rescue videos after the shipwreck off Pylos According to the spokesperson of the Hellenic Coast Guard, Mr. N. Alexiou, concerning the deadly and criminal shipwreck off Pylos on June 14, 2023, “at the time of the sinking, there was no possibility of recording” (statements…