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---
title: Criminalization of Solidarity
has_sessions: mythbusting, collectivememorywritingbycriminalizedactivists, calloutcopscalloutsystem, dontbeanasshole, readanddisrupt, challengetherulings
---
*Keywords:* criminalization, police, state, governmentality, crimmigration, migrants, refugees, Police (cops) violence/coercion
# Understanding why's and how's of criminalization of solidarity
When Cédric Herrou was handcuffed and taken to jail by a few police officers, the news worldwide portrayed him as a criminal. One didn't even have to ask why but assumed that helping illegal crossings of migrants from Italy to France was terribly wrong. The mere fact that he helped an *illegal* move justified the ways the repressive apparatus of the state treated him - publicly handcuffed and taken to further punitive procedures. Accused of smuggling and forced to four month long custody, Herrou was subjected to a trial. The trial was turned against Herrou both in the courtroom and publicly as helping the illegal move of refugees was strongly condemned. However, a few months later, the principle of *fraternity* incorporated in the french constitution [released](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-france-court/french-farmer-who-helped-migrants-showed-fraternity-court-rules-idUSKBN1JW25S) Herrou as it conferred the freedom to provide humanitarian assistance and help whether ones are legally or illegally present on a territory.
Recently published research [Humanitarianism: the unacceptable face of solidarity](http://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wpmedia.outlandish.com/irr/2017/11/10092853/Humanitarianism_the_unacceptable_face_of_solidarity.pdf) discusses prosecution of more than 40 individuals who dared to assist migrants and refugees in crossing the sea or land borders irregularly. It covers case studies that speak to rigidity of migration management and regulation of civic disobedience-in-solidarity with migrants and refugees. A recent [case of a war veteran Dragan Umičević](https://www.portalnovosti.com/dragan-umicevic-kazna-meni-je-poruka-drugima) of [Are You Syrious](https://euractiv.jutarnji.hr/en/politics-and-society/migrations/humanitarian-ngos-under-assault-from-radicals-spurned-by-authorities/8078207/) who helped a group of refugees including six children who were freezing in winter at the Croatian-Serbian border or [Scott Warren of No more deaths](https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2019/06/07/creeping-criminalisation-humanitarian-aid) in Arizona who helped two undocumented migrants along the US-Mexico border or a volunteer and a Syrian refugee [Sarah Mardini of Emergency Response Centre International](https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2019/05/02/refugee-volunteer-prisoner-sarah-mardini-and-europe-s-hardening-line-migration) who was arrested for her humanitarian work in Moira camp or a ship captain [Carola Rackete](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-p8_V40Wvk) who docked the migrant rescue Sea Watch ship in the port of Lampedusa without authorization or a [mayor of Riace Domenico Lucano](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/02/pro-refugee-italian-mayor-arrested-suspicion-aiding-illegal-migration-domenico-lucano-riace) who was arrested under accusation of aiding illegal immigrants - all those events speak strongly of contestation of solidarity actions with migrants and refugees. More, the examples listed above as many others that stay invisible and hidden from public sight have been under state prosecution helmed by the rigid anti-smuggling legal provisions. Fekete notes that “The emergence of autonomous migrant and refugee solidarity movements and the lengths individuals were prepared to go to help were perceived by states as a threat to their control of borders.”
The border control and the *security obsession* as coined by Mattelart (2010) have been strongly inscribed in the current European, American and global migration regimes. Those have been generating labels of threats embodied by the migrants and refugees which has been producing the industry of *enemizing* them and of those who identify and solidarize with them.
Illegal or irregular crossings of migrants represent one of the most serious violations of entering foreign sovereign territory within the complex web of punitive technologies entailed in the migration management regimes. Both migrants who are perceived as bodies carrying the culture of criminality (cf. Harvest of Empire) and helpers, whether they help crossings intrinsically or by an extrinsic value of money, are represented as criminals. The current migration regime treats them all as smugglers and criminals whose only and logical further path is incarceration and punishment. That representation is perpetual due to its productive dispersion - it is not only centralized in state actors but among the public too. We sure can notice the spill-over effect within the societies where fear of danger and unsafety mobilized defense mechanisms due to an intense propaganda we have been exposed too in our everyday lives (remember Viktor Orban’s or Matteo Salvini’s political agendas). Drawing on the foucauldian approach, the *governmentality* of crimmigration and the one of criminalization of solidarity has permeated different spaces.
Criminalization of solidarity through humanitarian assistance represents violation of the international humanitarian law and international human rights law as well as violation of constitutions and legislations of liberal democracies. It is also deeply counter-human and counter-social action. Yet, the production of fear and threats has been extremely pervasive thus highly disturbing as it deteriorates social trust and deepens the harm perpetuated against refugees and migrants.
Such political project require anti-hegemonial counter actions that envisions possibilities of solidarity making and that radicalize political spaces and our responses. Below is an offering of a pedagogy of rethinking and repositioning of and for oneself and groups who are eager to work through the complexities of criminalization of solidarity in local spaces that are transnationally connected. The pedagogical ideas in here is a calling for politicization of these troubled realities in demand of critical shifts.
# Resources:
## Reports and Press Releases
- Are You Syrious: [When governments turn against volunteers](https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-special-when-governments-turn-against-volunteers-the-case-of-ays-81fcfe0e80e7)
- [Centre for Peace Studies: Criminalisation of Solidarity in the EU
International Federation for Human Rights: Joint statement: The EU must stop the criminalisation of solidarity with migrants and refugees](https://www.fidh.org/en/issues/human-rights-defenders/joint-statement-the-eu-must-stop-the-criminalisation-of-solidarity)
- [Institute of Race Relations: When citizens won’t be silenced: citizens’ solidarity and crimminalization](http://www.irr.org.uk/publications/issues/when-witnesses-wont-be-silenced-citizens-solidarity-and-criminalisation/)
- [87 European organisations call on Hungary to withdraw proposed laws targeting groups working with migrants and refugees](https://www.ecre.org/87-european-organisations-call-on-hungary-to-withdraw-proposed-laws-targeting-groups-working-with-migrants-and-refugees/)
## Web pages
- Emmaüs Roya - https://defendstacitoyennete.fr
- Border Angels - https://www.borderangels.org
- Docs not Cops - http://www.docsnotcops.co.uk
- Patients not Passports - https://patientsnotpassports.co.uk
- Migrants Organise - https://www.migrantsorganise.org
- Shapshots from the borders - http://www.snapshotsfromtheborders.eu/criminalization-of-solidarity/
## Books
- [Institute of Race Relations - Inside Racist Europe](http://www.irr.org.uk/publications/issues/inside-racist-europe/)
- [Grewal, Inderpal: Securing the Security State](https://www.dukeupress.edu/saving-the-security-state)
## Papers
Carrera, S., Vosyliūtė, L., Smialowski, S., Allsopp, J. and Sanchez, G. (2019). [Fit for purpose? The Facilitation Directive and the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance to irregular migrants: 2018 update.](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/536490/IPOL_STU(2016)536490_EN.pdf) Bruxelles: PETI Committee of the European Parliament
Fekete, L. (2018). Migrants, borders, criminalisation of solidarity in the EU. Institute of Race Relations.