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More than 20 humanitarian workers are set to stand trial in Greece on migrant-smuggling and money-laundering charges, seven years after authorities arrested them for their work rescuing migrants and refugees at sea. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison.
The Mytilene Court of Appeals on the Greek island of Lesvos is expected to hear the case on December 4, bringing 24 human rights defenders before judges on felony charges of “membership of a criminal organization,” “facilitation of the entry of third-country nationals into the country” and “money laundering.” Human rights groups have unanimously denounced the accusations as baseless.
“After a years-long investigation found no new evidence, the case depends on deeply flawed logic: saving lives at sea is mischaracterized as migrant smuggling, so the search-and-rescue group is a criminal organization, and therefore the group’s legitimate fundraising is money laundering,” Human Rights Watch said in a Wednesday statement.
The charges concern the defendants’ work with the now-defunct nonprofit Emergency Rescue Center International (ERCI), which supported Greek authorities, including the coast guard, in search-and-rescue operations between 2016 and 2018.
The case dates back to August 2018, when Greek authorities arrested Syrian human rights defender Sarah Mardini and Irish rescue diver Seán Binder. They were released that December after spending more than 100 days in pretrial detention, while authorities brought criminal charges against the 24 ERCI volunteers, including misdemeanor counts of forgery, espionage and the use of unlicensed radio frequencies.
Between 2023 and 2024, courts dismissed all four misdemeanor charges against the defendants; however, the more serious felony charges remain pending.
“The prosecution should never have brought the case in the first place, much less continued it for seven years and brought it to a felony trial. It will be in the hands of the court tomorrow,” Bill Van Esveld, Associate children's rights director at HRW told OCCRP.
Regardless of the trial’s outcome, Van Esveld said the case has already had “very harmful effects,” noting that ERCI “was effectively shut down all the way back in 2018 with the arrests of several members.” The threat of prosecution has also pushed other humanitarian groups working in search and rescue to shut down.
A 2021 European Parliament report described the case as the “largest case of criminalization of solidarity in Europe,” reiterating that the charges against the volunteers are unfounded. Lawmakers ranked Greece second in Europe for intimidation and prosecution of search-and-rescue operations, after Italy.
While the case against the 24 humanitarians is perhaps the largest example of criminalizing aid to migrants, it is far from isolated. In 2024 alone, 142 people across Europe were criminalized for showing solidarity with migrants—including 62 in Greece, 29 in Italy, and 17 each in Poland and France—according to the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants.
