THE KINSA CASE

Italy

Number of people arrested:
(All data: 'From Sea To Prison' project - ARCI Porco Rosso and borderline-europe):

Since 2013, around 3,200 people have been arrested on charges of “facilitation of unauthorized migration”.

Source: From Sea to Prison, 4th quarterly report 2023, from Arci Porco Rosso and borderline-europe.

"Boat drivers are identified mostly through two or three witness testimonies, singled out by Italian authorities and Frontex at landing, and often extracted through the use of pressure and incentives such as promising documents or access to the asylum procedure, for collaborating, or threatening to deport someone if they are non collaborative, or investigating the witness for illegal entry. Captains are generally arrested based on these statements, during identification proceedings for the passengers of the boat. If someone has died during the journey, captains were also accused of ‘manslaughter’ or ‘shipwreck’ (now integrated into the new article 12bis), and face up to 30 years in prison."

Extract of "Solidarity as 'Organized crime': The criminalization of facilitation in Italy" by Carlo Caprioglio, Karl Heyer and Sara Traylor (Captain Support Network).

Criminalisation through facilitation laws also affects migrant communities as they support their members. Providing food, shelter, or financial support to those in the migration process has been considered a criminal act, as in the case of the four Eritrean people of the Agaish case.

Cases

Press publicantions:

Organisations working on criminalization of people on the move:

ARCI-Porco Rosso borderline-europe Captain Support Network (Italy) Maldusa Legal Clinic Roma 3 ASGI
← Consequences of the facilitation laws