"Blaming the Rescuers" - A "fake news" NGO study
30 June 2017
The alarm bells should already be ringing not only by reading the title "Blaming the Rescuers - Criminalizing Solidarity, Re-enforcing Deterrence" but also by taking a look at who the authors of the study Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani are.
Charles Heller is not only "a declared enemy of closed borders", but also a co-founder of "Watch the Med" project which is designed to facilitate information and assistance to illegal immigrants across the Mediterranean.
Both authors are members of the "Forensic Architecture Agency" directed by Eyal Weizman at the "Goldsmiths", University of London, which is a Fine Arts College.
The "FAA" works closely with NGOs and human rights organizations and specializes at the same time in "blurring" of boundaries between science and activism.
The work of "FAA" is political and their mission statement was reported as early as 2016 by the Swiss "Tageswoche" - Charles Heller's "Watch the Med" project is an example of activism and political character of the "FAA".
Acknowledgments are no coincidence
It is therefore no coincidence that the study explicitly thanks the following entities: "Watch the Med, Migreurop, Boats4People, EuroMed Rights networks, Statewatch, Amnesty International, ARCI, Meltingpot and Borderline Sicily".
Also explicitly the SAR-NGOs are being thanked, including Doctors Without Borders and Sea Watch, who are active in the Mediterranean. The Sea Watch for example is outraged with the fact that migrants were brought back to Libyan ports and the Boats4People calls for "rigid controls in the Mediterranean to be lifted".
Outrageous argumentation
The authors are trying to justify the activities of NGOs. They want to prove that the activity of the trafficking NGOs is not a "pull factor" making at the same time copious amount of mistakes. Instead of explaining why the NGOs are not a "pull factor" it is only explained that the figures have risen in comparison with the previous years. The fact that NGOs have made this possible by de facto taking over the role of state agencies is simply blurred out. One of the evidences used is that there was a 46 % migratory rise on the "West African" route. In factual terms, there were only 11,000 migrants in 2016 compared to more than 180,000 on the "Central Mediterranean" route. The reasons for such an increase are simply omitted and not discussed.
Another argument used is the fact that the traffickers, because of the destruction of their ships, have started to use inflatable rubber boats which are not capable of crossing the Mediterranean.
This is not responsibility of the NGOs but is skillfully concealed that the activity of the traffickers can only be carried out by picking up migrants directly off the Libyan Coast.
The NGO madness in the Mediterranean
"The arrival increase has nothing to do with the activities of NGOs" - this claim among others is based on the comments made by "some" government representatives. Statements made by the representatives of governmental agencies which did not suit the authors were simply ignored.
For example statement of Fabrice Leggeri in an interview with the German "Die Welt" newspaper:
"We need to prevent the fact that we are not supporting the criminal networks and traffickers in Libya and that the migrants are not picked up by the European ships increasingly closer to the Libyan Coast".
In the meantime it is known that the NGOs not only cooperate with Libyan traffickers but even partially pay them.
Not a word is mentioned of the fact that all the authorities of the Italian and Austrian foreign ministries, Frontex and the Libyan Coast Guard demand a tougher action against the NGOs, accusing them of causing a major “pull effect”. Also concealed is the fact that NGOs actively hinder the work of authorities and make investigation against traffickers even more difficult.
Even the older "study" is politically motivated
Incidentally it is not a study but only a "guest blog post", nevertheless it is referred to as a "study of the University of Oxford and the Scuola Normal Superiore" - "Border Deaths in the Mediterranean: What We Can Learn from the Latest Data" by Elias Steinhilper and Rob Gruijters. Both authors are left-wing activists and very good friends from the Humboldt University in Berlin. Steinhilper is a "PhD candidate in Political Science and Sociology at Scuola Normal Superiore in Florenc" and Gruijters is "postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford." Facts: Steinhilper is active in several "refugee initiatives" and is working on a promotion for the "Transnationalization of Refugee protests in Europe".
Misleading comparisons
Also these two authors wanted to prove that the activity of NGOs had no effect on the number of migrants and failed critically. A cardinal failure of the misleading analysis should be mentioned here. The article compares everything, but not the actual number of illegal migrants with the expected migrants in the same period without NGO activities. The authors simply conceal the fact that without NGO activities, almost not a single migrant could come cross the Mediterranean and the number of crossings would be minimal.
This is particularly interesting because the policy in Australia has already proven these facts:
"Most began their journey in Indonesian harbors on desolate boats, hoping for a new beginning in affluent Australia. The arrival peak reached in the election year of 2013 over 20,000 people on 300 boats. [...] Immediately after the change of Government the number of boats fell drastically. In 2014 only one boat was registered - and since then no one landed any more. The Navy ships blocked 30 boats with 765 individuals".
Conclusion
The authors attempt with their pseudo-scientific studies to whitewash and justify the illegal activities of NGOs. The studies are written by NGOs and for NGOs and are not only flawed, but also politically motivated.
The reason for this kind of reports is the growing criticism of the trafficking NGO activities. The voices are getting louder and an imminent action against them is becoming more and more likely.
The Authors:
* "Charles Heller | openDemocracy": https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/charles-heller
* "Lorenzo Pezzani": http://www.gold.ac.uk/architecture/research-students/past-phd-students/lorenzo-pezzani/
* "Elias Steinhilper - Refugee Research Network": http://fluechtlingsforschung.net/team-manager/elias-steinhilper/
* "Rob Gruijters": https://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/academic-staff/rob-gruijters.html
Source:
* "Rescue operations off Libya must be scrutinised" / "Rettungseinsätze vor Libyen müssen auf den Prüfstand": https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article162394787/Rettungseinsaetze-vor-Libyen-muessen-auf-den-Pruefstand.html
* "Charities 'colluding' with smugglers: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39686239
* "Charities ‘pay people traffickers’": http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4592108/Charities-pay-people-traffickers-ferry-migrants.html
* "Traffickers may pay some NGOs-prosecutor": http://www.ansa.it/english/news/politics/2017/04/27/traffickers-may-pay-some-ngos-prosecutor_c737218a-b7dc-44ef-ac6a-d7d648c175b7.html
* "NGO rescues off Libya encourage traffickers, says EU borders chief": https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/27/ngo-rescues-off-libya-encourage-traffickers-eu-borders-chief
* "Italy calls for police to be deployed on migrant rescue boats": https://www.thelocal.it/20170517/italy-calls-for-police-to-be-deployed-on-migrant-rescue-boats
* "Kurz: The NGO madness must be end" / Kurz: "Der NGO-Wahnsinn muss beendet werden": http://diepresse.com/home/ausland/eu/5189256/Kurz_Der-NGOWahnsinn-muss-beendet-werden
* "Libyan Navy claims German NGO hindered migrant rescue": http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/generalnews/2017/05/11/libyan-navy-claims-german-ngo-hindered-migrant-rescue_e3c044e4-6eea-441a-9b98-d8916235ef39.html?idPhoto=1
* "Frontex director criticizes rescue operations of NGOs in the Mediterranean" / "Frontex-Direktor kritisiert Rettungseinsätze von NGOs im Mittelmeer": http://derstandard.at/2000053228568/Frontex-Direktor-kritisiert-Rettungseinsaetze-im-Mittelmeer
* "NGOs fuel human trafficking - “NPQ” Nonprofit Quarterly" : https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2017/06/15/ngo-anti-smuggling-efforts-end-fueling-human-smuggling/
* "Efforts to Rescue Migrants Caused Deadly, Unexpected Consequences": https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/14/world/europe/migrant-rescue-efforts-deadly.html?mcubz=2
Documents:
* "FRONTEX Triton Analytical Report -December 2016": https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3531244/Frontex-Triton-Analytical-Report-December-2016.pdf
* "FRONTEX - Risk Analysis for 2017" - report: http://frontex.europa.eu/assets/Publications/Risk_Analysis/Annual_Risk_Analysis_2017.pdf
* "Caught in the act: NGOs deal in migrant smuggling": https://gefira.org/en/2016/11/15/caught-in-the-act-ngos-deal-in-migrant-smuggling/
Additional sources:
* "Blaming the rescuers": https://blamingtherescuers.org/acknowledgements/
* "This Swiss is using Big Data to prevent dying in the Mediterranean" / "Dieser Schweizer geht mit Big Data gegen das Sterben auf dem Mittelmeer vor": https://tageswoche.ch/gesellschaft/dieser-schweizer-geht-mit-big-data-gegen-das-sterben-auf-dem-mittelmeer-vor/
* "Watch the Med": http://watchthemed.net/
* "Forensic Architecture agency": http://www.forensic-architecture.org/
* "Borderline Sicily": http://migrantsicily.blogspot.de/2012/02/borderline-sicilia-onlus.html
* "Border Deaths in the Mediterranean: What We Can Learn from the Latest Data": https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2017/03/border-deaths
