AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL called on the Italian authorities today to drop legal proceedings against activists from refugee rescue ship the Iuventa.

Between August 2016 and August 2017, the vessel’s crew saved the lives of more than 14,000 people in the central Mediterranean.

The Italian authorities began spying on them in September 2016, before seizing the Iuventa four years ago.

The authorities said that several members of the crew had been placed under investigation but didn’t clarify who or why.

Then, in March this year, the prosecutor’s office in the Sicilian city of Trapani brought charges of “aiding and abetting irregular entry” against 21 individuals from three NGOs: Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Jugend Rettet, a German organisation that worked closely with the Iuventa.

If found guilty, the activists could face up to 20 years in jail.

Yesterday, Amnesty International Germany demanded that the Italian authorities drop all legal proceedings against the Iuventa’s crew and other sea rescue NGOs.

“Rescue at sea is an obligation under international law,” said Franziska Vilmar, the human rights group’s expert on asylum policy.

“Instead of prosecuting crew members for assisting them with irregular entry, the rescue of refugees must always remain unpunished, as it is carried out for humanitarian reasons.

“These criminal proceedings help ensure that people fleeing across the Mediterranean are not rescued and that civilian sea rescue crews are intimidated.

“This year alone, more than 1,100 people have died in the Mediterranean and an estimated 6,100 people have been returned to detention camps by the Libyan coastguard.”