Can Saving Lives Be A Crime?
Is saving lives a crime? Should it be to look the other way? … Three Sevillian firefighters from Proemaid were tried in Lesbos for saving the lives of hundreds of people in Greece. Laws, so necessary and tight in most cases, become obsolete or dehumanized in periods of turmoil and change.
Laws, those that we must all embrace, sometimes go one way and people go another. This is the case of these three firefighters who were tried for not knowing how to look the other way and save the lives of those who could lose it in drifting boats.
Fortunately, when laws do not protect human rights, there are people and associations dedicated to safeguarding them. Associations such as Proemaid and Open arms, rescue from the sea those who try to reach Europe fleeing war conflicts, persecution or poverty. Not saving the life of those who fall into the water is what should be punished.
Finally, firefighters who had been accused of human trafficking, when carrying out refugee rescue tasks as volunteers for an NGO, say they are “happy” and “relieved” after being released. ” The sentence shows that saving lives is not a crime, ” one of them pointed out after the court’s decision.
Suppress human rights out of selfishness
Everything returns. Today there are others, yesterday it was us, tomorrow nobody knows. We cannot allow ourselves to live in a world that only looks at its navel, because although today we have the upper hand, tomorrow we will not know what situation we will have to navigate. If we encourage a world in which there is no compassion, there is no empathy and there is no justice, sooner or later we will get the other side of the coin, as citizens and possibly as a nation.
Under the mafias that are dedicated to human trafficking hides a lack of sensitivity of society. Although it is more than evident that we must fight against these mafias that dehumanize people by treating them as numbers, the place to fight them should not be the sea.
The fight against these mafias has to take place at the starting and finishing points, once the people are in the bar it should not be admitted as a battlefield. The battlefield must be on land, innocent lives fleeing from barbarism are endangered at sea.
At sea, every second counts
Albert Einstein already said, the problem of man is not in the atomic bomb, but in his heart. In the case of the associations that contribute at an international level in the rescue efforts of men, women, boys and girls in extreme circumstances, their hearts cannot be bigger. For these people it is better to act exposing themselves to regret it, than to regret not having done anything.
The Lesbos ruling clarifies and confirms that these associations do not deserve the criminalization for saving lives, of which they are currently and unfortunately the object, in this and other similar cases. Without any doubt, it is a question of humanitarian work for the purposes of exemption from criminal responsibilities to which the European Facilitation Directive makes explicit reference.
This sentence is not only good for these three Sevillian firefighters, but for all the people who help save lives in the Mediterranean, because people who help were being judged. An attempt has been made to criminalize solidarity, an attempt has been made to criminalize humanitarian aid and this sentence shows that saving lives is not a crime.
Images courtesy of www.fitovazquez.es
