Sean Binder is a human rights campaigner and founder of Free Humanitarians. He is facing criminal charges for his work in migrant search and rescue with Sara Mardini. By January 13, 2023, While misdemeanor charges such as espionage have been dropped, he still faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
The EU often lectures the rest of the world on “European values” of human rights and justice. But these are nothing if we are not willing to practice them.
In 2018, I spent more than 100 days in pre-trial detention on a Greek island, and still face 12 years in prison after being found guilty of heinous crimes, including money laundering and facilitating the illegal entry of asylum seekers Used to be.
For more than four years I have waited for the prosecution to finally bring these charges to trial.
However, with some damage to my ego, I must dispel any exciting notions about myself as a criminal mastermind or international spy. My alleged “crime” was nothing more than helping people at risk of drowning in the Aegean Sea. In early 2017, I spent nearly a year coordinating civilian rescue efforts on the Greek island of Lesvos, off the coast of Turkey. With To provide emergency medical assistance at sea and on the coastline to the Greek authorities.
And for this I was handcuffed to the murderers and locked in a small cell.
Regarding my trial, Human Rights Watch said prosecutors wanted “criminalize saving lives, In relation, it is just one of many examples of criminalizing people To help the needy people.
Imagine that you arrive at the scene of a car accident. You see someone lying on the side of the road; They clearly need your help. What would you check first, their pulse or their passport? If you check their pulse first like me, you have committed the same crime I have committed.
Politicians often speak of the “pull factor”, saying that even if search and rescuers are not directly involved in trafficking, they indirectly encourage it by rescuing asylum seekers. Asylum seekers fleeing conflict and persecution decide to risk their lives by crossing the Mediterranean because NGOs provide them with aid, such as search and rescue – or so their argument goes.
I read about this pull factor for the first time Frontex Risk Analysis Report while in my cell. Reports allege that rescuers actually cause deaths through the pull factor. I was stunned. How naive was I? During my search and rescue work, I thought I was helping people, but apparently I was putting people’s lives at risk by colluding with a very dangerous smuggling industry.
It’s a very innocuous argument – but digging a little deeper reveals that there is absolutely no correlation between the presence of search and rescue and the operations of smugglers. There IsHowever, there is a correlation between smuggling and the season on the departure coastline. and there Is A connection between trafficking and ongoing conflict.
Unfortunately, this reality does not prevent the EU from using the threat of people smugglers to shirk its legal and moral responsibility to provide protection to people fleeing conflict and persecution. For this, they want to prevent asylum seekers from reaching Europe.
Rather perversely, it is the EU’s anti-smuggling policies that encourage smuggling. This is because one must be physically present on the territory of the host country in order to claim asylum. But the “safe and legal route” into the EU is a myth. For example, we have banned them Deploying dogs to viciously attack those trying to cross EU bordersPushing asylum seekers into the hands of smugglers with our own border policies.
Ironically, it is not me, the alleged perpetrator, who has little understanding of the law – rather, it is the EU.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right to seek asylum; The European Convention on Human Rights prohibits mass executions; The Geneva Conventions ensure that no person should be criminalized for irregularly crossing a border for the purpose of seeking asylum; And international maritime conventions require search and rescue of those at risk at sea.
Of course, migration and borders are polarizing issues, and nowhere is this more apparent than in social media. Since the process began, I have received daily messages telling me that I am a criminal and that the people I “trafficked” should die. Yet, for each such message, others told me I was a hero.
Both are wrong – and they are wrong for the same reason: characterizing the act of helping someone as a criminal or a hero implies that it is somehow abnormal. but it’s not like that. The most common act is to help someone in distress.
Throughout this ordeal, I have learned how ineffective our border policies have been, and how fast we have been willing to ignore the rule of law.
No one should be left to drown.