Flotilla, appeal to ECtHR against Italia, 'should have protected the two activists'

A press conference was held late in the morning, attended by Maria Elena Delia, spokesperson for Global Sumud Italia. Among other things, they spoke about the urgent complaint filed by the legal team with the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office and the legal actions taken at national and international level, the situation in Crete, the conditions of the hospitalised participants, and updates on repatriation.

"The Flotilla is restarting. We will use these days to sort everything out and put the boats back in place. We have comrades from Greece, Italia, Spain, Holland and all over Europe who have mobilised to come here'. This was stated by Luca, an activist in connection from Greece, during the press conference of the Italian delegation of the Global Sumud Flotilla in front of the Farnesina. 'We have taken all the precautions we had to take, we are in contact with the authorities,' he added. 'We will leave again and we will be even more than when we left Sicily. If before we had a million reasons to go to Gaza, now we have one more,' he said.

Avila and Abukeshek, Delia stressed at the press conference, 'were on board a talian boat. This means, by the law of the sea, that they were taken illegally from Rome. The boats were 20 miles from Crete, in international waters but under Greek jurisdiction. This is serious not for the activists but for Europe'. "We demand that they be freed: it is a legal issue," he added. "If they are allowed to be kidnapped in international waters from a boat flying the Italian flag, it is a further escalation of a systematic and unpunished violation of international law. We call on everyone to act and mobilise, to create permanent garrisons. Thiago and Saif represent the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners. We call for action for the release of all of them and for vigilance to demand that justice be done".

The legal team of the Global Sumud Flotilla filed an urgent appeal at the European Court of Human Rights against the Italian state in the interest of Saif Abukeshek Abdelrahim and Thiago de Avila. The appeal highlights the 'responsibility' of Italia as the flag state of the ship 'Eros 1' on which the two activists were on at the time of their 'interception'. "According to the established case law of the Strasbourg Court and the international law of the sea," they write, "Italia exercised jurisdiction over those on board and was therefore obliged to take all necessary measures to prevent foreseeable violations of fundamental rights. No effective measure of protection was adopted nor was any action taken to prevent or stop the violation in progress" despite the fact that the "Italian authorities had been promptly informed of the concrete and imminent risk to the life and physical integrity of the activists". By means of the urgent procedure provided for in Article 39 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), the Italian authorities are asked to "ascertain the place of detention of the two activists", guarantee their "physical and psychological integrity", ensure "access to defence" and "prevent further transfers or forms of isolation".

"They boarded our boats with guns blazing, they were more aggressive than last time. I was on the last boat intercepted: they broke sails, engine and diverted it to the military cargo ship where they forced us on board. We were 181'. Thus the account of Tony La Piccirella, one of the Italian activists arrested the other night in the boarding of the Global Sumud Flotilla boats off Crete, reported to the Ansa agency. "After a few hours I and five other activists were put in solitary confinement," he adds, "I was in a completely closed container, like a cell. I stayed there for about thirty hours. There were only two tatami mats on the floor. The other 175 comrades were in the lobby where water was coming in and there were no blankets. Twenty-one activists, including women, were beaten. Three were seriously injured and one of them is still in hospital'. Then the activist pointed out that the disembarkation operations took place 'under the observation of the Greek coast guard'. "Even in those stages there were beatings because we tried to stay until Thiago and Saif were freed". For La Piccirella, 'what happened is a step beyond. It is no longer a 100-mile naval blockade,' he says, 'but has extended to the entire Mediterranean. It is a concrete demonstration that if law dies in Palestine it dies everywhere'.

Spain's Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, said in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio that Israel's detention of the Spanish Global Sumud Flotilla activist, Saif Abu Keshek, is 'illegal'. "I want to be very clear: we are dealing with an illegal detention that took place in international waters, outside the jurisdiction of the Israeli authorities," he said.