Interview
Mimmo Lucano: ‘Maysoon is innocent, she should be set free immediately’
MEP Mimmo Lucano (The Left) has given his full support to Maysoon's cause, as well as that of Marjan Jamali, a young Iranian mother who is under house arrest on the same charges.
On September 2, he visited her in prison in Reggio Calabria. On Wednesday, he will be in court in Crotone for the third court date in the immediate trial of Kurdish activist and filmmaker Maysoon Majidi, who has been detained for nine months in Calabria on charges of aiding and abetting irregular immigration.
MEP Mimmo Lucano (The Left) has given his full support to Maysoon's cause, as well as that of Marjan Jamali, a young Iranian mother who is under house arrest on the same charges. We met him in Strasbourg as he is about to board a plane for Calabria. On Wednesday, at 10:30 a.m., he is scheduled to hold a press conference at the Gli Spalatori di Nuvole club in Crotone.
Mr. Lucano, you visited Majidi in prison a few weeks ago. How was she?
Very thin, but determined to get justice. Her father wrote me a beautiful letter, like the one you published in il manifesto, which I read. It is really a grotesque affair. Maysoon is innocent, she should be set free immediately. I myself have been under judicial pressure. Only those who experience such situations firsthand know how good it feels to hear expressions of solidarity. I am going to Crotone not in connection with my current institutional role – I am going as a supporter of the Kurdish cause. The Kurds and Iranians are being persecuted and should be protected, not sent to prison by us of all people, the ones who boast about the free world. This story with the so-called traffickers is really absurd. It’s not the first time I’ve pointed this out. Almost 30 years ago, after the first landing of Kurds in Riace, they arrested four of them. I went to visit them in prison. They were desperate, they had been picked out of the group because of false accusations. They later turned out to be innocent.
You said you would like to get the European Parliament involved in this matter. In what way?
I want to make Europe aware of the drift away from humanitarianism taking place in Italy: the ongoing persecution of migrants, the deportation projects to Albania. The cases of Maysoon and Marjan are just the tip of the iceberg. The Cutro tragedy, which is no longer talked about, with the sea engulfing children and bringing their dead bodies to shore, paints a vivid picture of the guilty failure of the Meloni government's migration policies. These are people who are just asking to be allowed to live, and we criminalize them from the start, as soon as they land, treating them as traffickers while the real traffickers are elsewhere. We must never forget that it is the West that is responsible for the migratory exodus. It is we who export wars and traffic in weapons, it is we who have plundered their territories.
In Europe, there is the looming prospect of an axis between the socialists (the German and British ones for now) and the conservatives on migration. Expedited repatriations, a return to pre-Schengen border controls, deportations on the UK-Rwanda and Italy-Albania models. What do you think of this change of course from the European socialists?
It’s the usual political game of opportunism and short-sighted electoral calculations. It is disgusting, and a huge mistake. Making calculations on the backs of poor souls is repugnant. Treating people from the standpoint of political expediency is very far from my understanding of politics. One does politics by following one's conscience, not to pick up a few votes. Our left is a utopian one, closer to the Church than to the socialists. And I’m saying that as a secularist. But, as Fr. Alex Zanotelli says, those who are against migrants shouldn’t even go into a church.
Exactly one year ago, the trial of your appeal in Reggio Calabria ended, and it went on to a ruling on October 10. Today (September 16), by a curious twist of fate, your historic rival, Minister Salvini, finds himself in the dock facing a sentence of six years in prison for kidnapping and refusal to perform official acts. What do you think, is it the law of what goes around, comes around?
That’s just how life goes, as they say. But the two cases are diametrically opposed. First of all, from the point of view of my own attitude: I never proclaimed myself innocent from the beginning, even though I knew I was. But I let justice take its course, and the judges agreed with me. Then, these are very different charges. Who gave Salvini the power to trap hundreds of people at sea? How could he have arrogated to himself the right to dispose of human beings as he pleases for his propaganda? I have always fought for a just and supportive society, which is the exact opposite of what the Lega are doing. In Riace, the Lega was in power for five years, then they came in last in the last elections. That has to tell us something. It means that when put to the test of governing, they fail. It means that their policies are failures, including their policies on migrants.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/mimmo-lucano-oggi-a-crotone-per-maysoon-liberatela on 2024-09-18