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2019-06-09 Europe
German boat captain Pia Klemp faces prison in Italy for migrant rescues
[DW] Pia Klemp stands accused of aiding illegal immigration after she saved people from drowning in the Mediterranean. The Bonn native has accused Italian authorities of organizing "a show trial."
New rulers, new rules. And then there’s the whole learning from the past thingie...
In interview with the Basler Zeitung daily on Friday, Klemp said that a trial against her was due to begin soon after she and some of her compatriots were charged in Sicily with assisting in illegal immigration.

She said that she was told by her Italian lawyer that she could be looking at "up to 20 years in prison and horrendous fines."

Klemp added, however, that she intended to fight the case up to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, La Belle France, if she had to.

The 35-year-old Bonn native has been under investigation in Italia since her ship, the Iuventa, was impounded in the summer of 2017, and the government has moved to ban her from sailing around the Italian coast. According to German public broadcaster WDR, through the work on that ship and the Sea-Watch 3, Klemp has personally assisted in the rescue of more than 1,000 people at risk of drowning in unsafe dinghies as they attempted to cross to Europe
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
in search of a better life.

SALVINI'S CRACKDOWN
An already immigrant-unfriendly government in Rome became even more so in June 2018, when newly appointed Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of the far-right League party promised a crackdown the likes of which modern Italia had never seen.

Since assuming office, Salvini has sought to put a stop to migrant rescue ships docking on Italian shores and allowing refugees to disembark. In January, the nationalist leader made headlines with the forced evacuation of hundreds of asylum-seekers from Italia's second-largest refugee center and his refusal to clarify where the people, many of whom had lived in Castelnuovo di Porto for years and become integrated into town life, were being taken.

Shortly thereafter, Sicilian prosecutors ruled that Salvini could be charged with kidnapping more than 177 migrants colonists left stranded on a ship he had ordered impounded.

'A YEARSLONG SHOW TRIAL'
What frustrates Klemp the most, she told the Basler Zeitung, is that the costs ‐ amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros ‐ that she has had to prepare to cover from her own savings and some new donations "for what is likely to be a yearslong show trial" require money that could have been spent on rescue missions.

"But the worst has already come to pass," she said. "Sea rescue missions have been criminalized."

For this, the captain blames not only the Italian government but what she sees as a failure of the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
"to remember its avowed values: human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
, the right to life, to apply for asylum, and the duty of seafarers to rescue those in danger at sea."

Klemp added that "demagogues" such as Salvini, former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer were effectively allowing thousands to perish in the Mediterranean each year.

She pushed back at criticism that rescue missions encouraged more people to attempt the highly dangerous crossing. "There are scientific studies that disprove the idea that sea rescues are a so-called pull factor," she said. "The people come because, unfortunately, there are so many reasons to flee." And if countries close their borders, "they come via the Mediterranean because there is no legal way to get here," she added.

To cover her potentially exorbitant legal costs, a bar in Bonn has announced a fundraising campaign to help Klemp. Cafe Bla has announced that for every patron who orders the "Pia beer," 50 euro cents will be donated to their former waitress.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-06-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [4 views ]  Top
 File under: Moslem Colonists 

#1 It's a translation problem. What they call 'migrant rescue' in Germany, they call 'people smuggling' in Italy.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-06-09 03:32||   2019-06-09 03:32|| Front Page Top

#2 Captain Klemp, meet Captain Corelli.
Posted by Snanter Gonque2561 2019-06-09 04:25||   2019-06-09 04:25|| Front Page Top

#3 Don't feed the bears
Posted by Procopius2k 2019-06-09 08:08||   2019-06-09 08:08|| Front Page Top

#4 I guess sailing up around to a German port wasn't in the cards.
Posted by M. Murcek 2019-06-09 08:51||   2019-06-09 08:51|| Front Page Top

#5 Klemp has personally assisted in the rescue of more than 1,000 people at risk of drowning in unsafe dinghies as they attempted to cross to Europe

By transporting them in her ship from a Dar Port to Italy?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-06-09 09:58||   2019-06-09 09:58|| Front Page Top

#6 I can understand her motivation to help people, However, she would be better off if she took them back to where they came from.
Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2019-06-09 17:41||   2019-06-09 17:41|| Front Page Top










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