On 2 August 2017, Italian authorities seized the IUVENTA, our search and rescue ship. We, a group of young students and activists from Germany, had started this journey by earning our first donations selling cookies and second-hand clothes at a flea market.  Between the summer of 2016 and the IUVENTA’s seizure, we had rescued more than 14,000 people who had embarked on the dangerous journey across the deadliest border in the world, the Central Mediterranean Route to Europe.

Now, our comrades stand accused of “aiding and abetting unauthorized immigration”. These charges are based on the testimony of a former police officer who worked as a security guard on another rescue ship. He acted as a personal spy for the far-right leader of the racist Lega Nord party who would later go on to become Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini.

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