Criminal charges against migrant rights defenders rising, NGO finds

Doctors, lawyers, people renting their apartments through Airbnb, journalists and taxi drivers – almost anyone can be charged in Europe with the crime of facilitating irregular migration.

Ieva Raubisko is a sociologist, as well as a member of I want to Help Refugees, an association that helps asylum seekers with things like access to language classes in Latvia.

Raubisko and her colleague, Egils Grasmanis, are facing administrative and criminal charges because they allegedly helped a group of Syrian refugees cross the border from Belarus in early 2023, in breach of Latvian law. 

They are just two of more than a hundred people charged last year for facilitating the entry, stay or transit of migrants into the European Union last year, according to PICUM, an NGO.

Based on information gathered from media reports throughout the year, the organization said this week that at least 117 people – probably many more – faced judicial proceedings in 2023 for “acting in solidarity with migrants.”

The figures reflect an upward trend in the criminalization of people defending migrants’ human rights, which is set to continue with a proposed reform of a law called the ‘Facilitation Directive’, according to PICUM. 

“These numbers are only the tip of the iceberg of what is actually happening in the European Union,” said the organization’s director, Michele LeVoy, in a press release.

“Current trends are likely to worsen as EU proposals to fight migrant smuggling fail to include a binding exemption of humanitarian acts from potential criminalization.”

From sea rescue to giving food and water

The revised EU Directive is aimed at stopping smuggling to the bloc, but critics say that under the current proposals, civil society and human rights defenders will still be liable to be prosecuted simply for trying to save lives.

PICUM’s media monitoring of criminalization of those assisting migrants found that the majority of cases in 2023 were in southern Europe: 74 people were charged in Italy and 31 people in Greece. The remaining reported cases were in Poland (6), Malta (3), Latvia (2) and Cyprus (1).

Under the EU law, anyone who “intentionally assists a person who is not a national of a Member State to enter, or transit across the Member State” can face criminal charges. A person who intentionally helps an undocumented migrant to reside in a Member State can also be liable, if they are doing it for financial gain.

This covers a wide range of people and activities, from NGO ships conducting search and rescue operations, to volunteers providing food, shelter, medical or legal assistance to migrants in border zones and even mayors promoting integration.

Last year, 46 of those who faced criminal charges were involved in rescuing or helping migrants in distress at sea, according to PICUM. A further 19 were criminalized for providing shelter to migrants; 18 for “promoting inclusive policies at the local level”; 17 for trying to stop a deportation, and eight people were criminalized for providing migrants with food, water, and clothes – among them Raubisko and her colleague Grasmanis.

Proceedings lasting years

Cases against those assisting migrants typically take a long time. The average length of legal proceedings is 3.5 years, but many last even longer, according to PICUM.

In one case from Italy, former Riace mayor Mimmo Lucano, known for his efforts to promote the inclusion and integration of migrants in his village, spent five years in house arrest and under investigation.

In another case from Greece, 24 human rights activists, including Sean Binder and Sarah Mardini, have been undergoing legal proceedings for more than four years for charges brought against them for rescuing asylum seekers at sea. While the charges were partially dropped in 2023, the felony case is still unresolved.

Wide-ranging costs

Being charged with helping migrants does not always mean receiving a penalty. In fact, of the 42 people whose trials were closed in 2023, 40 received an acquittal, PICUM found.

But – whether the accused are acquitted or not – trials still have heavy consequences on their finances, personal lives and psychological wellbeing.

“It has affected my relatives, my family, my child,” Ieva Raubisko told the activist network A World of Neighbours in an interview on YouTube in March.

“It’s not an easy process to go through. It demands a lot of strength, which I do not always have,” said Raubisko, who faces up to two years in prison if convicted.

As well as the personal cost, NGOs also say both court cases and non-judicial penalties such as the impounding of search and rescue ships have a “chilling effect”, discouraging others from joining efforts to help migrants whether on land or at sea.

The proceedings against the rescue ship Iuventa are a case in point: four of its crew members spent seven years in limbo – facing the prospect of 20 years in prison and large fines as a criminal case against them dragged on, until prosecutors asked for the case to be dismissed in February this year.

Accused crew member Dariush Beigui told InfoMigrants last year that it made many people afraid to take part in search and rescue missions and as a result, migrants were left without assistance.

Read more: Acquittal of French farmer who helped migrants to cross border 

Criminalized for crossing borders

As well as criminalizing those helping migrants, European Member states are also continuing to use legislation to prosecute migrants themselves. According to PICUM, between January 2023 and December 2023, at least 76 migrants in Italy, Greece and Spain were criminalized for the sole act of crossing borders irregularly. At least seven of them were children at the time.

Many of those charged were alleged to have driven a boat, while others were accused of having been on a boat and still others of having resisted a pushback at sea, PICUM’s figures show.

The organization says that in one case from Greece, a 45-year-old Egyptian man was sentenced to 280 years in prison for human trafficking, smuggling, and belonging to a criminal organization because he helped steer the vessel he was in with other 476 migrants, including his son.

Read more: Migrants-as-smugglers: Europe’s criminalization of people on the move