The Italian police arrested captain Carola Rackete after defying Italian authorities by docking without permission in Lampedusa to disembark 40 migrants. Sad-Watch 3 is a German ship flying Netherlands’ flag.
After waiting for two weeks in international waters for an invitation from Italy or an EU state to accept the ship, Rackete decided to sail towards Lampedusa but was blocked by government vessels.
Live footage showed the captain being taken off Sea-Watch 3 by police and driven away. The local media, RAI, reported that she was arrested for “resisting a warship” – a crime that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Coast guard took the ship to keep it far from the small port.
France Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner said that the Italian decision to close its ports is against the maritime law. In the same context, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has called for the release of Rackete; saying that "Rescuing human lives is a duty and should never be a crime."
Italian Prime Minister Salvini reacted stressing: “Italy has no lessons to learn from anyone”. He insisted on the fact that the migrants were rescued in the Libyan waters by a ship owned by a German NGO and under the Dutch flag and therefore, have no reason to be in Italy.
Salvini warned NGOs working in rescuing migrants that, from now on, they will have no permission to land on Italian beaches; addressing with that warning the ship of the Spanich NGO “Proactiva Open Arms” and the ship “Alyan Kurdi” that belongs to the German NOG “Sea Eye”.
Sea-Watch 3 had rescued a total of 53 migrants from an unseaworthy boat in waters off Libya back on 12 June. In recent days, 13 of them were taken off the vessel for medical reasons and transported to Italy for treatment.
Many human rights activists gathered on the dock, with inhabitants from the island. Some people welcomed the Captain with applauses; while others showed satisfaction for her arrest, shouting hostile, racist and violent slogans, wishing her to “be raped by these niggers”, according to Reuters.
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