Helping Migrants Has Become A Crime

Activists and NGOs are an inconvenience. That's what Governments seem to think in every single place where human rights are being violated.

Lorena Gazzotti explains for The Guardian why states are attempting to criminalize activists by using very similar arguments: the facilitation of irregular migration, or human trafficking.

There are a few cases in different parts of the Mediterranean in which activists have been targeted.

Helena Maleno, a Spanish journalist and human rights advocate, is one of them. After her case was withdrawn by the National High Court in Spain, Maleno now faces a new hearing on December 27 in Morocco. She is accused of human trafficking for helping drowning migrants on the Mediterranean coast.

The reason? She has become an inconvenience, holding authorities responsible for the countless migrants perishing in the strait.

Italy and France have prosecuted similar cases in their territories.

Governments argue that by assisting migrants, activists are encouraging them to cross. On top of that, NGOs and human rights advocates become witnesses to the brutal consequences of migration policies and give voice to those who cannot speak up for themselves.

According to the Overseas Development Institute, Europe spent over 17 billions of Euros between 2014 and 2016 on protecting its borders, but much less on helping refugees.

In Spain, one of the most extreme examples, in 2014 the government spent 30 times more on border control than on assisting migrants.

These arguments are undermining the democratic scrutiny.