Several NGOs have been calling for the suspension of the trial against 24 people from the NGO Emergency Response Center International (CGV), including Amnesty International, and the UN as well. They report that the process has many shortcomings, including the lack of translation of documents for foreign defendants, as reported by the media. Human Rights Watch warns that some police reports said some of the defendants were involved in rescues “on dates when the defendants were not in Greece.” These are the mistakes that have led to the paralysis of Lesbos’ trial.

The European Parliament denounced in a report in July 2022 that the trial against cooperatives is the “biggest case of criminalisation of solidarity” in Europe. “Criminalization must be seen as a backlog against civil society, which is doing work that states do not do.” The NGO Fénix is processing the defense of the defendants and denounces that the trial is “vital”: “Criminalization against humanitarian workers will lead to the loss of lives of asylum seekers.”

Request for imprisonment up to 20 years

The NGOs have welcomed the decision to paralyse the trial, but have pointed out that some disputes are still open. The Prosecutor’s Office of Lesbos requires a prison sentence of up to 20 years for cooperatives, charged with “helping foreigners enter the country illegally, become part of a criminal organization and launder capital.”

Two of the defendants are Syria Sarah Mardini and Irish Sean Binder, who spent three months in a Greek prison in 2018 for their humanitarian work. They were accused of spying and human trafficking.

Mardini is a Syrian refugee, a professional swimmer, based on the story of the film “Swimmers”, released in 2022. The sisters Yusra and Sarah Mardini traveled aboard a boat from Syria to Lesbos, along with 18 other people who fled, and were able to reach the port because the sisters carried the boat swimming. Since then Mardini has been working as a cooperator and that is why he is being judged.