Day Orange Malta: EU’s fundamental rights are drowning, say NGOs
Crew members from Mission Lifeline, Sea-Eye and Sea-Watch, the civil search and rescue nongovernmental organisations, joined the German cities taking part in ‘Day Orange’ last Saturday in Malta.
Protestors in cities around Germany called for a more human refugee policy and against the criminalisation of civil sea rescue. They also protested against Horst Seehofer, the German Interior Minister, known for his harsh stance against migration.
In a statement yesterday, Mission Lifeline, Sea-Eye and SeaWatch remarked how: “The fundamental rights of the EU are drowning in the Mediterranean at the moment, just like the people that are trying to reach safety in Europe. Not with us!”
On Day Orange in Malta last Saturday the crews of the Lifeline, Sea-Eye and Sea-Watch took the current situation literally and took to the water with Article 2.1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The organisations recall how Article 2 of the EU Charter states: 1. Everyone has the right to life. 2. No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.
“We have demonstrated and voiced our opinion with a floating banner of Article 2.1 of the EU Charter and life saving equipment in the sea.
“This is the same sea in which so many people have drowned already and which has become a mass grave. As EU values keep drowning in the Central Mediterranean, it‘s up to us, the civil society, to prevent a total systemic collapse into barbarism and to defend what Europe stands for.
“We want to go back out to the international waters and fight for people in need and for the appreciation of life. We cannot accept Europe‘s understanding of human rights being limited to its borders.
“The practical negotiations upon the worth of human life make the Mediterranean Sea the deadliest border in the world. This is not acceptable.
“Human rights and the fundamental rights of the EU are nonnegotiable! To stand up for those rights should neither be hindered nor criminalized, it should not even be up for discussion. Sea rescue is not a crime, letting die is one. Day Orange has set a powerful signal in many cities for the civil society‘s fight to remind the politicians of that.
“Thanks to everyone in Malta and beyond who stands with sea rescue, who took to the streets on Saturday and during the past 41 days since the rescue ships have been detained.”