Episode 68: EU plans to criminalise solidarity with refugees
Release Date: 02/25/2025
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_outlineIn this episode, we speak with Yasha Maccanico a researcher and journalist at StateWatch, a UK-based charity focused on civil liberties, human rights and democracy in Europe.
We talk about a proposed EU law that could make it easier for states to criminalise acts of solidarity with people on the move.
Yasha also talks to us about abuses of state power in Europe under the guise of lowering immigration, the externalisation of the EU's borders in Africa, and much more.
---Get in touch---
Twitter: @FleetCivil
Mastodon: @civilfleet@kolektiva.social
Bluesky: @thecivilfleet.bsky.social
Instagram: thecivilfleet
info@civilfleet.com
--- Show notes ---
For more on StateWatch, check out their work here: statewatch.org
Follow them on BlueSky: @statewatch.bsky.social
Ben misquotes the late left-wing politician Tony Benn, who once said: “The way a government treats refugees is very instructive, because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.”
In fact, the phrase may have been misattributed to Tony Benn.
You can watch one of Tony Benn's most famous speeches against the US-UK' illegal invasion of Iraq, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ciGW7h7PI&ab_channel=PoliticsJOE
Yasha mentions the an independent media company Bristol Cable. You can read their work here: thebristolcable.org
Ben and Yasha talk briefly about the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol in 2020. You can read more about that here; https://exhibitions.bristolmuseums.org.uk/the-colston-statue
Here's where you can find out more about Migreurop: https://migreurop.org/?lang=en
Ben mentions an episode of The Civil Fleet with Jihed, a Tunisian activist with Alarm Phone and Louise Michelle. Check out episode 48 for that.
For more on Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, check out episodes 54, 52, 50, 34, 31, 23, 15, 7 and 1
Ben mentions previous The Civil Fleet Podcast episodes with people who have been arrested and given ludicrous sentences for driving boats or cars across borders. Check out episodes:
56, which focuses on Homayoun Sabetara, a father who fled Iran to be reunited with his daughters in Germany and was sentenced to 18 years behind bars in Greece after he was forced to drive across the border.
53 with Nadia, a young refugee woman from Lebanon who husband was arrested by the Greek authorities and accused of human smuggling after spending 10 days adrift in the Mediterranean.
35 with Hanad, a Somalian refugee who was senteced to 142 years behind bars for trying to stop his boat from sinking in the Aegean Sea and saving the lives of 33 others
Here are the links Yasha sent:
EU: New migrant smuggling law to ensure criminalisation of solidarity (December 2024)
https://www.statewatch.org/analyses/2024/eu-new-migrant-smuggling-law-to-ensure-criminalisation-of-solidarity/
A new EU law on the criminalisation of migrant smuggling will be examined by the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council. The Council is due to approve its position for negotiations with the European Parliament. The existing law has been criticised for failing to prevent the criminalisation of migration and acts of solidarity with migrants and refugees. The new text, obtained by Statewatch and published here, appears likely to worsen the situation.
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EU: Council lowers threshold for migrant smuggling prosecutions (July 2024, with PICUM)
https://www.statewatch.org/news/2024/july/eu-council-lowers-threshold-for-migrant-smuggling-prosecutions/
EU institutions are discussing proposed changes to the law criminalising the facilitation of irregular migration, which has also been used to criminalise migrants and individuals acting in solidarity with them. The Belgian Council presidency presented a revised draft to other EU member states at the end of May, which would simplify the criminalisation of irregular entry, amongst other things. The draft will serve as the basis for further discussions within the Council, with Hungary now in the presidency role until the end of this year.
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Viewpoint, Hindering humanitarianism: European Commission will not ensure
protection for those aiding sans-papiers, Chris Jones (April 2017)
https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/analyses/no-311-facilitation-directive.pdf
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The shrinking space for solidarity with migrants and refugees: how the European Union and Member States target and criminalize defenders of the rights of people on the move (TNI, Yasha Maccanico, Ben Hayes, Samuel Kenny, Frank Barat, September 2018)
https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/web_theshrinkingspace.pdf
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Libya/elmasri: including full text of Shatz/Branco submission to the ICC against Italian ministers: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2025/february/italian-ministers-should-face-justice-for-freeing-fugitive-war-criminal-says-legal-complaint/
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Deportations (aka returns): http://www.statewatch.org/news/2025/january/deportations-new-role-for-frontex-as-eu-pushes-for-more-voluntary-returns/
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“Outsourcing borders” externalisation bulletin project, bulletins and documents archive:
https://www.statewatch.org/outsourcing-borders-monitoring-eu-externalisation-policy/
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To challenge border militarisation (with partners, 2023/24), Telling the story of EU border militarisation,
https://www.statewatch.org/media/4000/eu-border-militarisation-narrative-guide.pdf
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Europe’s techno-borders (2023 with EuroMed Rights)
https://www.statewatch.org/publications/reports-and-books/europe-s-techno-borders/
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Frontex and interoperable databases: knowledge as power? (2023)
https://www.statewatch.org/frontex-and-interoperable-databases-knowledge-as-power/
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Empowering the police, removing protections: the new Europol Regulation (2022)
https://www.statewatch.org/publications/reports-and-books/empowering-the-police-removing-protections-the-new-europol-regulation/
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Interoperability, eu-LISA and the biometric state (2022)
Building the biometric state: Police powers and discrimination
https://www.statewatch.org/publications/reports-and-books/building-the-biometric-state-police-powers-and-discrimination/
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Background docs selection on interoperability and the EU JHA policy field
http://www.statewatch.org/observatories/interoperability-eu-big-brother-database/
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Secrecy and externalisation of EU border control (2022)
https://www.statewatch.org/media/3781/secrecy-and-externalisation-of-migration-control.pdf
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Renditions observatory
http://www.statewatch.org/observatories/rendition-the-use-of-european-countries-by-the-cia-for-the-transport-and-illegal-detention-of-prisoners/