Soccorso in mare e criminalizzazione “diretta” e “indiretta” delle ONG

The contribution analyzes the changed attitude of public opinion and politicians towards SAR activities; a change that has led to the direct and indirect criminalization of NGOs involved in these relief operations. This is also the direction of the recent “Salvini bis” decree, which provides for the application of administrative pecuniary sanctions (plus, possibly, the confiscation of the vessel), whose recipients are precisely those who carry out research or, in any case, rescue operations. This is a rule that is difficult to apply, as it is in contrast with rules of domestic law and international conventions. The real goal is to spread the image of the rescuer as an instrument of smugglers. In this way its identification with the criminal is produced and the tendency to attract even those who help or help migrants and / or refugees in the logic of the “criminal law of the enemy” is strengthened; a logic that permeates Italian (and not only) legislation in the field of immigration, but which, in more recent times, is also affecting the policies implemented against refugees and applicants for international protection.