Civil society organizations engaged in search and rescue (SAR) activities in the central Mediterranean express strong concern over yet another attempt by the Italian government to punish assistance to people in distress at sea and to criminalize NGOs.
“The real goal of the decree-law is not to better manage rescue operations at sea, but rather to hinder the presence and the actions of humanitarian NGOs by criminalizing their action. In this way, the Mediterranean be emptied of search and rescue vessels.” It is with these words that organizations engaged in search and rescue activities comment on the approval in the Senate of Decree Law 145/2024, also known as the ‘flows decree’.
“This new set of rules entails more sanctions, both with administrative detentions and with fines of up to ten thousand euros, including the possibility of confiscation of rescue ships. In addition, the action of NGO planes engaged in monitoring is also targeted, even though they contributed crucially to the rescue of boats in distress and have documented serious and systematic human rights violations. These violations include omissions in rescue, unjustified delays in intervention, and the facilitation of forced refoulement as a result of violent interception. According to the signatory NGOs, this legislation aims at weakening the legal duty to report the presence of boats in distress. There is also concern that these legal measures are an attempt of eventually turning these same planes into tools at the service of the Libyan Coast Guard’s maritime interception system.
“In addition to this, punitive measures for NGO SAR vessels foreseen in the Piantedosi Decree are being even more exacerbated. First, although the duration of the first administrative detention of the ship can now be modulated between 10 and 20 days depending on the severity of the violation, a ban on sailing is still prescribed pending the adoption of the prefectorial order. This, in effect, adds additional days of inactivity for the vessel, with no possibility of appealing. In addition, a reiteration of the violation occurred up to the previous 5 years triggers the tightening of penalty measures, not only if the reiteration occurs by the same master, but also by the same shipowner.”
“This is a law that severely worsens the current situation: it has repeatedly happened that NGO vessels were detained based on false statements by the Libyan Coast Guard without even verifying all the records of conversations and exchanges of e-mails and radio messages carried by the NGOs themselves. Secondly, extending reiteration to the shipowner makes the effect of penalties more severe, because on NGO ships a master tends to change more often than the shipowner. Lastly, the decree shortens the time limits for appealing detentions imposed on NGO ships, which were established by the Piantedosi Decree.”
“Once again,” the signatory NGOs conclude, “it seems that the aim is to make life impossible for those who save lives and witness the violations of international law occurring daily in the Central Mediterranean. This is another harmful, propagandistic and inhumane law, as well as blatantly illegitimate. In fact, the government continues to try to circumvent International Law through ordinary laws, decrees, regulations and administrative practices, attempting to inflict in the short term the greatest possible harm on those crossing the sea and those it rescues. What we expect is an increase in deaths at sea but once again this decree will not stop the solidarity of those who, like us, really try to do something to mitigate the suffering of others.”
NGO SIGNATORIES
- EMERGENCY
- Mediterranea Saving Humans
- MSF
- Open Arms
- Resq
- Sea-Watch
- SOS Humanity
- SOS MEDITERRANEE
