Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Tomorrow, Seán Binder, an Irish NGO worker and trained maritime search and rescuer faces trial in Greece for the crime of saving people's lives. In 2017 and 2018, he worked with a registered non-profit body that regularly engaged and joint operations with the Greek Coast Guard. His job was conducting search and rescue operations in the Aegean Sea, saving drowning refugees. Now he faces up to 25 years in prison for this humanitarian work. His rescue work is now being called smuggling. The charity fundraising he was involved in is being called money laundering. Monitoring for information about boats in distress is being labelled as espionage. This is a brutal and very worrying attack on humanitarian work and an attempt to scare other NGOs and humanitarian activists away from supporting and saving the lives of refugees. What will the Government do to support Seán Binder and to protect him from a potential gross miscarriage of justice? Will the Taoiseach speak out against this practice of attempting to criminalise humanitarian activity? Will representatives from the Irish Embassy attend the trial tomorrow?

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