La Criminalizzazione della Solidarietà - una panoramica socio-legale dell'area del mediterraneo

My dissertation will mainly focus on the topics of the criminalisation of migration, the so-called “Crimmigration”, and more specifically on the criminalisation of solidarity at European level, focusing in particular on the Mediterranean area and some European States: Italy and France. In the first chapter I will mainly concentrate on the phenomenon of migration, with particular regard to the main sea migratory routes crossing the Mediterranean. I will also try to offer a comprehensive overview of the origins of SAR operations, from the rise to the fall of Mare Nostrum, to the expansion of privately-funded NGOs SAR operations, as well as on the controversial memorandum (MoU) signed between the Italian government and the Libyan government. In the second chapter will be mostly devoted to the description of the complex relationship between media, migration, criminalisation of solidarity and political discourse. I will start by analysing the ideas of public opinion and collective consciousness, and the influence exercised by media in their formation. Furthermore, with the support of a study conducted by Mistiaen on some Belgian TV broadcasts, I will try to offer a comprehensive view of how migrants and migrants solidarity are portrayed by media, and their strict tie with politics and State authorities in general. In the third chapter I will investigate the figure of the “facilitator”, both from a sociological and legal point of view, analysing the contradictions and the ambiguity built around this person. To better understand the legal and social characteristics and controversies built behind such figure, I will focus on the different definitions given to the crimes of “smuggling” and “trafficking”, both at international and national level, with particular regard to the French and the Italian legislation. I will also consider some specific cases of criminalisation of solidarity in the Italian and French legislation, to better comprehend the real nature of the criminalisation of solidarity and the fundamental distinction between humanitarianism and autonomous solidarity. To conclude, in the fourth and last chapter I will mainly focus on the sociological aspects built around the figure of the migrant and of the facilitator, the stigma attached to them and the groundbreaking “Membership Theory” by Stumpf. I will also investigate the reasons and consequences of the exclusion of migrants as well as the defamatory rhetoric built around those altruistically carrying out autonomous solidarity acts.