Italy’s interior ministry is preparing to tighten rules for charity-run rescue ships in an attempt to deliver on Giorgia Meloni’s electoral promise to reduce the flow of migrants.
Among the measures is an obligation for the ships to deliver migrants to a place of safety immediately, without waiting at sea to pick up more passengers, La Repubblica reported yesterday.
The rules will also prevent small rescue ships from transferring migrants to larger ships so they can remain at sea, the paper said.
The rules will be enshrined in a binding law rather than forming part of a voluntary code of conduct, as had previously been the case. La Repubblica said enforcement would pass from the courts to regional prefects with the power to impose fines and impound ships in the event of violations.
A possible first indication of the new tactic emerged last week with the rapid grant of a port of safety to the small German charity ship, Rise Above, which had previously transferred 63 rescued migrants to the larger Sea-Eye4. After rescuing 27 Syrians on Friday it was swiftly granted permission to land in the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro. “Surprisingly quickly, a few hours after the rescue, we were assigned a port of safety. Rise Above is arriving,” the charity said on Twitter.
Charities fear that the plan is to force their ships to make long and frequent trips ashore, consuming time and fuel, with the risk of being fined or impounded if they disobey.
Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister and a former civil servant, has been given the job of implementing the prime minister’s commitment to reduce immigration, which contributed to her rightwing Brothers of Italy party’s victory at the September poll.
In a television interview last week Piantedosi said that some non-governmental organisations seemed determined “to bring migrants from Libya and other countries only to Italy” as part of a preordained plan.
Marc Bradley, a psychologist working for the migrant charity SOS Méditerranée, said governments didn’t seem to appreciate that holding traumatised migrants on ships at sea was “playing with the lives and wellbeing of people”.
It was about time, came just a few years too late.
It’s so sad that we’ve gotten to this point. Why make it more difficult to help save people’s lives? It’s like mandating ambulances can only have 2 wheels
It’s called human trafficking, I’m glad for Italy!
The NGOs are borderline criminal and work hand in glove with criminal gangs, providing the link that enables them to send people to their deaths.
Their cynical use of an outdated human rights framework is what allows them to do this, presenting themselves as saviours when in truth they are simply obtaining money from human suffering just like the traffickers do. Part of a rotten system that runs right up to the human rights lawyers who fight against the deportations of violent criminals.
Ultimately, it’s the human rights framework itself that needs reform, but in the meantime anything that can be done to reduce the activity of NGOs and thus reduce the absolute numbers of drownings (and migrants) over the medium to long term is to be welcomed.
If you donate money to these NGOs, then you are not only complicit in illegal migration, you also have responsibility for luring people to their deaths at sea as sure as any 18th century smuggler flashing a light of safety at passing ships to lure them into the rocks.
Honestly at this point why not make it possible to aply for refugee status via ambassy? Go to neighbor country, fill out the form wait for comfirmation/refuse see what you can do next. If confimed go to next airport and fly there with Papers delivered by the ambassy.
We need more and we need it fast.
All that these charities do is encourage people to start crossing the Mediterranean absolutely unprepared with the hope that they will be rescued and brought to Italy.
only 7 years too late. that s not too bad for EU standards.
Reading this thread makes me embarrassed to be in the EU. Let people drown so the learn their lesson????
Fuck you guys.
These “charities” are nothing more than accomplices of human trafficing rings. Even those who don’t allegedly have connections to these groups should be still considered organized crime groups.
They may be trying to help but in the end they led to even more suffering and tragedies. If it was known that no illegal migrants can slip through the sea fewer people would try.
It’s like putting a free food sign in the middle of a minefield, you are responsible for all the deaths of people who would normally stay away from it
At last, some good News
Think they should amend it slightly, make it legal to rescue but put the onus on returning them to the country of departure.
As always, the bad people fuck things up for the people actually in need. The problem is that out of 100 refugees, there is always a large group that is looking to abuse the Asylum or Refugee system provided by countries.
You can’t distinguish like this who actually needs it and who is lying. On top of that, the human traffickers send people alongside them.
As someone mentioned, there is a way to do so via the embassy, but then a lot of them wouldn’t qualify because economic immigrants aren’t asylum seekers nor refugees.
In some sense those charities are not so different from Belarus officials who pushed migrants into Lithuania and Poland. Charities don’t use force but scheme is similar. Belarus was shut down and EU silently supported actions of Lithuania and Poland. And payed for fences, cameras, and other stuff to cut that shit down. Why Italy is treated differently is beyond my understanding.
15 comments
Italy’s interior ministry is preparing to tighten rules for charity-run rescue ships in an attempt to deliver on Giorgia Meloni’s electoral promise to reduce the flow of migrants.
Among the measures is an obligation for the ships to deliver migrants to a place of safety immediately, without waiting at sea to pick up more passengers, La Repubblica reported yesterday.
The rules will also prevent small rescue ships from transferring migrants to larger ships so they can remain at sea, the paper said.
The rules will be enshrined in a binding law rather than forming part of a voluntary code of conduct, as had previously been the case. La Repubblica said enforcement would pass from the courts to regional prefects with the power to impose fines and impound ships in the event of violations.
A possible first indication of the new tactic emerged last week with the rapid grant of a port of safety to the small German charity ship, Rise Above, which had previously transferred 63 rescued migrants to the larger Sea-Eye4. After rescuing 27 Syrians on Friday it was swiftly granted permission to land in the Calabrian port of Gioia Tauro. “Surprisingly quickly, a few hours after the rescue, we were assigned a port of safety. Rise Above is arriving,” the charity said on Twitter.
Charities fear that the plan is to force their ships to make long and frequent trips ashore, consuming time and fuel, with the risk of being fined or impounded if they disobey.
Matteo Piantedosi, the interior minister and a former civil servant, has been given the job of implementing the prime minister’s commitment to reduce immigration, which contributed to her rightwing Brothers of Italy party’s victory at the September poll.
In a television interview last week Piantedosi said that some non-governmental organisations seemed determined “to bring migrants from Libya and other countries only to Italy” as part of a preordained plan.
Marc Bradley, a psychologist working for the migrant charity SOS Méditerranée, said governments didn’t seem to appreciate that holding traumatised migrants on ships at sea was “playing with the lives and wellbeing of people”.
It was about time, came just a few years too late.
It’s so sad that we’ve gotten to this point. Why make it more difficult to help save people’s lives? It’s like mandating ambulances can only have 2 wheels
It’s called human trafficking, I’m glad for Italy!
The NGOs are borderline criminal and work hand in glove with criminal gangs, providing the link that enables them to send people to their deaths.
Their cynical use of an outdated human rights framework is what allows them to do this, presenting themselves as saviours when in truth they are simply obtaining money from human suffering just like the traffickers do. Part of a rotten system that runs right up to the human rights lawyers who fight against the deportations of violent criminals.
Ultimately, it’s the human rights framework itself that needs reform, but in the meantime anything that can be done to reduce the activity of NGOs and thus reduce the absolute numbers of drownings (and migrants) over the medium to long term is to be welcomed.
If you donate money to these NGOs, then you are not only complicit in illegal migration, you also have responsibility for luring people to their deaths at sea as sure as any 18th century smuggler flashing a light of safety at passing ships to lure them into the rocks.
Honestly at this point why not make it possible to aply for refugee status via ambassy? Go to neighbor country, fill out the form wait for comfirmation/refuse see what you can do next. If confimed go to next airport and fly there with Papers delivered by the ambassy.
We need more and we need it fast.
All that these charities do is encourage people to start crossing the Mediterranean absolutely unprepared with the hope that they will be rescued and brought to Italy.
only 7 years too late. that s not too bad for EU standards.
Reading this thread makes me embarrassed to be in the EU. Let people drown so the learn their lesson????
Fuck you guys.
These “charities” are nothing more than accomplices of human trafficing rings. Even those who don’t allegedly have connections to these groups should be still considered organized crime groups.
They may be trying to help but in the end they led to even more suffering and tragedies. If it was known that no illegal migrants can slip through the sea fewer people would try.
It’s like putting a free food sign in the middle of a minefield, you are responsible for all the deaths of people who would normally stay away from it
At last, some good News
Think they should amend it slightly, make it legal to rescue but put the onus on returning them to the country of departure.
As always, the bad people fuck things up for the people actually in need. The problem is that out of 100 refugees, there is always a large group that is looking to abuse the Asylum or Refugee system provided by countries.
You can’t distinguish like this who actually needs it and who is lying. On top of that, the human traffickers send people alongside them.
As someone mentioned, there is a way to do so via the embassy, but then a lot of them wouldn’t qualify because economic immigrants aren’t asylum seekers nor refugees.
In some sense those charities are not so different from Belarus officials who pushed migrants into Lithuania and Poland. Charities don’t use force but scheme is similar. Belarus was shut down and EU silently supported actions of Lithuania and Poland. And payed for fences, cameras, and other stuff to cut that shit down. Why Italy is treated differently is beyond my understanding.