Episode 82: Monitoring human rights the Channel
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Peter from The Channel Monitoring Project. He tells how the new project plans to monitor people crossing over from France to England, how the group hopes to counter the toxicity around this in Britain, and how anyone can get involved. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: info@civilfleet.com Join me at the Manchester Anarchist Bookfair, see here: --- Show notes --- For more on The Channel Monitoring Project, see their website here: ...
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Episode 81: Kidnapped by the IDF – The Global Sumud Flotilla story
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Lorenzo D'Agostino, a journalist who took part the Global Sumud Flotilla's civilian-led mission to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. He tells us about joining sailing from Barcelona towards Gaza, how its boats came under repeated drone attacks, and how the activists were eventually intercepted and kidnapped by the Israeli Navy. Lorenzo tells us how, once in Israel, his captors treated them all like terrorists and subjected them to torture, before deporting them to Turkey. We also hear how most European governments totally failed to stand...
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Episode 80: Under attack from the Libyan ‘Coastguards’
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Patrick, a search and rescue worker on SOS Mediteranee's ship the Ocean Viking. Patrick is going to tell us about the Libyan Coastguard's attack on the Ocean Viking in August this year. The tells us how the EU-funded Libyan Coastguards circled the ship and peppered it with bullets at head and chest height. There were 80 rescued people on the ship, including unaccompanied children. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Despite their attack on a European-flagged ship, the EU has said it will continue to fund and work with the Libyan Coastguards. ...
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Episode 79: Documenting the UNHCR's failures in North Africa
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with human rights campaigner and Refugees in Libya co-founder David Yambio. He gives us an update on Refugees in Libya's Unfair campaign, which demands the UNHCR change the way it treats people in need of its protection. He tells us about the Book of Shame — which he and his fellow Refugees in Libya campaigners co-wrote with members of Refugees in Tunisia and Refugees in Niger. He tells us how the book outlines the UNHCR's failures to protect people-on-the-move, in North Africa. David also tells us how he found out...
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Episode 78: Solidarity on trial in Poland
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode we speak with Aleksandra from Grupa Granica, a refugee support coalition working at the Poland-Belarus border, and Ola, a member Szpila, an anti-repression feminist collective based in Warsaw. They are going to tell us about the trial of a man called Bartek, who, in October 2024, provided humanitarian assistance to a young Somali man who wanted to apply for asylum in Poland. However, the border guards pushed the Somali man back to Belarus without lodging his asylum application. When Bartek told the guards that he would file a complaint against...
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Episode 77: Occupy Fortress Europe!
The Civil Fleet Podcast
We speak with Manon and Camille, two activists with F.Lotta - a horizon network organising protests across Europe this weekend and the central Mediterranean, demanding free movement for all and an end to fortress Europe's murderous policies. Camille and Manon tell us how and why F.Lotta was formed, about all the different campaigns taking part in the continent-wide protests, and how they hope the protests will show that a different world is possible. --Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: info@civilfleet.com ...
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Episode 76: Stop the inhumanity at Europe's borders
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Jeff Crisp, formerly of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and now part of the campaign group United Against Inhumanity (UAI). He tells us how and why UAI was set up, how it is trying to get European governments to treat people-on-the-move humanely, and about the organisation's recently published manifesto: Stop the Inhumanity at Europe's Borders. We also discuss the far-right's anti-asylum-seeker protests in the UK, Italy's failed deportation deal with Albania, and the US's similar deals with countries in Africa and Latin America. ...
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Episode 75: Frontex ‘likely’ breached refugees' right to life
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Lucille, operation communications manager for SOS Mediterranee. She tells us how the Ocean Viking's crew found 25 people adrift in the Mediterranean Sea by chance in March 2024. The survivors told Lucille that they had left Libya five or six days ago with around 60 people. Most of them didn't survive. A serious incident report published quietly by Frontex in May this year corroborates the survivors' accounts, that their boat was spotted by planes and commercial ships, but no rescue was launched. The Frontex report also...
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Episode 74: Is solidarity a crime?
The Civil Fleet Podcast
We speak with Silvia from the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, or PICUM. She tells us about a report she wrote for PICUM on the criminalisation and non-judicial harassment of people-on-the-move and activists working in solidarity with them in Europe last year. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: info@civilfleet.com --- Show notes --- For more on PICUM, see: You can read the PICUM report talked about in this episode here: Follow PICUM on social...
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Episode 73: Dismantle the Home Office
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, migrants rights campaigner Zoe Gardner tells us why the UK Home Office should be dismantled. In a report she recently wrote for the Green Party, Zoe says the controversial department should be split up into two new ministries. We talk about the Home Office's acts of cruelty to migrants, refugees and people on the move, and how government policy of housing asylum seekers in unfit accommodation has created a billionaire. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: info@civilfleet.com...
info_outlineActivists aboard the Iuventa rescue ship saved the lives of over 14,000 people in the central Mediterranean between 2016 and 2017.
Based on dodgy allegations from a security guard with links to the far right, the Italian secret services began spying on the Iuventa crew in September 2016.
The Italian authorities seized the Iuventa in August 2017, and initially warned 10 members of the crew that they were under investigation for human smuggling.
But in March 2021, only four of them were charged with “aiding and abetting illegal immigration to Italy.”
The four are Kathrin Schmidt, Dariush Beigui, Sascha Girke and Uli Tröder.
The preliminary hearing began in May 2022, and has been marred by the prosecution’s many procedural errors and a lack of proper translation for the German defendants.
At the end of February 2024, Ben Cowles went to Trapani, on the Italian island of Sicily, to cover what was hoped to be the end of the pretrial.
In this episode we interview Dariush and Sascha, two of the Iuventa four, on the day the prosecution gave up.
We speak with Elisa De Pieri from Amnesty International, Allison West from ECCHR, former Iuventa crewmate and Die Linke Party candidate Lea Reisner, and Mediterranea: Saving Humans' head of operations Beppe Caccia.
We also hear from the Iuventa's lawyers Nicola Canestrini and Francesca Cancellaro about the absurdity of the charges brought against the activists.
--Get in touch---
Twitter: @FleetCivil
Twitter: @FleetCivil
Mastodon: @civilfleet@kolektiva.social
Bluesky: @thecivilfleet.bsky.social
Instagram: thecivilfleet
info@civilfleet.com
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---Show Notes---
Check out The Civil Fleet's previous episodes with Iuventa crew members:
• Episode 2 with Sascha Girke
• Episode 24 with Kathrin Schmidt
• Episode 36 with one of their lawyers Francesca Cancellaro
Read all about the Iuventa on The Civil Fleet blog, here: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/tag/Iuventa
Read about Italy's top court declaring Libya not to be a safe port: reuters.com/world/africa/returning-sea-migrants-libya-is-illegal-italys-top-court-says-2024-02-18/
You can read the full European Ombudsman's findings on Frontex's operations, here: ombudsman.europa.eu/en/case/en/63451
Or you can read a news story about it, here: euractiv.com/section/politics/news/eu-ombudsman-slams-frontexs-dependence-on-eu-countries-for-sea-operations/
For more on the ECCHR, listen to episode 15 of The Civil Fleet Podcast with Silvia Rojas-Castro, a legal advisor at the ECCHR, and Elise Flecher, a senior programmes officer at Lawyers for Justice in Libya
Allison mentions UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawler. You can read about her intervention in the Iuventa case, here: https://iuventa-crew.org/en/2023/05/03/un-special-rapporteurs-call-on-italian-prosecution-to-dismiss-iuventa-case/
And on The Civil Fleet, here: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2020/10/08/un-expert-condemns-criminalisation-of-ngo-rescuers/
You can read the latest ECCHR report on the Iuventa pretrial, here: https://www.ecchr.eu/en/press-release/nach-7-jahren-staatsanwaltschaft-fordert-einstellung-des-verfahrens-im-iuventa-prozess/
A few times in the episode, Ben mentions a man, Ibrahima Bah, who was prosecuted in the UK for driving a boat across the Chanel. You can read about him in the Guardian newspaper, here: theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/12/ibrahima-bah-teenage-asylum-seeker-manslaughter
Read Ben's written interview with Lea Reisner on The Civil Fleet, here: https://thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2020/09/18/this-would-not-have-happened-if-the-people-we-found-were-white/
Read about former Frontex boss Fabrice Leggeri joining the far right in France: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/former-eu-border-agency-chief-joins-french-far-right-rn-party-2024-02-18/
Read about UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joining a protest organised by a climate conspiracy group last month: theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/25/sunak-stands-with-net-zero-and-climate-conspiracy-group-at-farming-protest
For more on Mediterranea: Saving Humans and the Maersk Etienne, check out episodes 18 and 47 of The Civil Fleet Podcast
Read about the Maersk Etienne, here: https://thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/?s=Etienne