MEDITERRANEAN: NGO questions states’ willingness to save lives after latest tragedy ― Trial of human rights defenders in Greece postponed until April 2027 ― European Court condemns Greece over poor reception conditions ― Questions over Italy-Egypt co-o…

• A search and rescue (SAR) NGO has raised concerns about Mediterranean countries’ willingness to provide assistance to people on the move following a recent fatal incident.
• The trial of two human rights defenders (HRDs) who are accused of criminal activities relating to their work in support of people on the move in Greece has been postponed.
• The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found that conditions at two reception facilities in Greece violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
• An court in Italy has convicted three Egyptian security officials of the aggravated kidnapping of an academic in 2016.

A search and rescue (SAR) NGO has raised concerns about Mediterranean countries’ willingness to provide assistance to people on the move following a recent fatal incident. On 29 September, the Aurora rescue vessel, which is operated by Sea-Watch, rescued 28 people and recovered two bodies after receiving information about a boat in difficulty “in the overlapping Libyan and Tunisian search and rescue regions” the previous day. Sea-Watch subsequently published a timeline of its actions between receiving the initial alert from the Alarm Phone emergency hotline and disembarking the survivors and bodies in Lampedusa in which it cited the Italian, Libyan and Maltese maritime rescue coordination centres (MRCCs). The NGO also submitted a request for access to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s (Frontex) documents relating to the incident as it suspected a “deliberate failure to render assistance” may have occurred given that both the Italian MRCC and Frontex were aware of the situation “12 hours before the shipwreck survivors were rescued”. Commenting on the incident, Sea-Watch Spokesperson Julia Winkler denounced governments for measuring the success of their migration policies on “falling arrival numbers” rather than on lives saved. “Those who make deterrence their priority accept these deaths willingly,” she said. Winkler also repeated Sea-Watch’s call for a “state-run European search and rescue programme”.

The trial of two human rights defenders (HRDs) who are accused of criminal activities relating to their work in support of people on the move in Greece has been postponed. Tommy Olsen, who is the founder of Aegean Boat Report (ABR) and Panayote Dimitras, who is co-founder Greek Helsinki Monitor, are accused together with “two Cameroonian nationals” of establishing and participating in a criminal organisation and jointly facilitating the “unlawful entry” and “unlawful stay” of third country nationals in Greece. The trial was supposed to start on 6 October in Rhodes. However, according to a statement published by Olsen on the ABR website, it was postponed shortly after it began as Dimitras’s lawyer was unable to attend. Commenting on 1 October, Dinushika Dissanayake from ECRE member organisation Amnesty International said: “The criminal charges against Panayote Dimitras and Tommy Olsen are a gross misuse of anti-smuggling legislation and are not backed by evidence. Both are being targeted for their work documenting serious human rights violations against migrants and refugees”. He added that the decision by Greek prosecutors to frame efforts to help people to access asylum procedures as “smuggling” was “not only a distortion of international and domestic law but a dangerous vilification of NGOs’ valuable work”. Front Line Defenders urged Greek authorities inter alia to drop all charges against Dimitras and Olsen, to cease all forms of judicial harassment and criminalisation of HRDs who peacefully defend the rights of people on the move, and to ensure that all HRDs in Greece can carry out their human rights work, in a safe and enabling environment, free from restrictions and the fear of reprisals.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found that conditions at two reception facilities in Greece violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). On 24 September, the ECtHR ruled that ‘A.M. and Others’ who had stayed in the Ritsona camp and the Moria Reception and Identification Centre on the island of Lesvos had been subjected to extremely poor living conditions in violation of Article 3 ECHR. It ordered Greece to pay between €3,000 and €8,000 in non-pecuniary damages to the eight applicants. One of the applicants, referred to as ‘R.M.’, who was denied timely access to essential HIV treatment, told ECRE member organisation HIAS Greece, which had represented her, that the ruling represented “much more than a judicial decision”. “It is the recognition of the value and dignity of human life, as well as an essential affirmation of the protection of human rights,” she said.

An Italian court has convicted three Egyptian security officials of the aggravated kidnapping of a young academic in 2016. PhD researcher Giulio Regeni disappeared in January 2016 while researching independent trade unions in Egypt and his body, which bore signs of “extreme torture”, was found in a ditch next to the Alexandria-Cairo highway nine days later. The convicted men were tried in absentia after Egyptian authorities “refused to notify them of the proceedings”. Although the Italian ambassador to Egypt, had been temporarily withdrawn in protest over the Egyptian authorities’ lack of co-operation on the case, relations between the two countries have largely remained “unaltered” in the decade since the 28-year-old’s death. According to the ANSA news agency, “successive Italian governments have drawn condemnation from Regeni’s parents by continuing to co-operate with Cairo on deals ranging from migration to oil finds and arms sales including two Italian-made frigates”.

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