Sea-Watch, operating two monitoring aircraft over the Central Mediterranean, denounces the latest Italian migration law as a direct assault on civil efforts to monitor and document human rights violations committed by the EU, Italy, and its proxies. This law, which allows for the grounding and confiscation of NGO aircraft, is an apparent attempt to shut down the public eye over the Central Mediterranean and stifle the exposure of Europe’s deadly migration policies.
The amendment to the law, which is expected to come into force today, October 3rd, provides for fines of up to €10,000, the detention of an aircraft for 20 days to 2 months, and, in the last instance, confiscation. The decree forces NGO-operated aircraft to report every emergency at sea not only to national rescue coordination centers, already a standard procedure, but also to Italy’s aviation authority, which is not responsible for search and rescue (SAR) operations. The measure falsely implies that organizations like Sea-Watch are failing to report emergencies in time when, in fact, governments are delaying rescues.
Paul Wagner, spokesperson for Sea-Watch, said:
“This law is designed to ground our planes and shut down the civil eye over the Mediterranean. At the same time, Italy tries to shift the responsibility for sea rescues onto unsafe countries like Libya or Tunisia in violation of international law.”
The decree expands Italy’s state harassment of the so-called Piantedosi decree, which targets NGO rescue ships, to civil aircraft. The measures are solely introduced to obstruct NGOs from documenting authorities’ non-assistance and complicity in human rights violations.
“We expose the truth about European governments and Frontex, which is why they want to stop us. This crackdown attempts to intimidate us, but we will continue to fly and reveal what happens at sea. Italy can try to ground our planes, but they cannot ground the truth,” Wagner concluded.
Sea-Watch remains committed to documenting and exposing human rights abuses in the Mediterranean. The organization calls on the international community to denounce this blatant attempt to obstruct civilian oversight.
