Iranian refugee hopes to be acquitted in Greece smuggling attraction trial | Refugees Information

Athens, Greece – It was April 2022 when Homayoun Sabetara lastly advised his daughters he was in a Greek jail cell.

Sabetara, an Iranian nationwide, had been arrested in August 2021 in Thessaloniki after driving a car throughout the Turkish-Greek border.

Sabetara says he was coerced into driving it into Greece and transporting the seven different individuals discovered inside. In September 2022, he was sentenced to 18 years in jail for smuggling in a trial that campaigners have stated was unfair and Sabetara didn’t absolutely perceive.

His daughter Mahtab Sabetara is now focussed on elevating consciousness for an attraction trial that begins on Monday in Thessaloniki and calling consideration to the plight of different asylum seekers apparently in the identical place.

“I discovered it fairly stunning to undergo this myself and determine that that is the future of many people who find themselves now in jail due to the identical allegations,” Mahtab Sabetara advised Al Jazeera over the telephone from Germany, the place she lives.

“I believed it will be, in fact, a very good factor to do for my father, in order that we are able to increase consciousness for his trial however on the identical time to make clear another instances which aren’t very well-known.”

Mahtab Sabetara stated she hopes to push for a bigger political change.

“It’s not simply an remoted factor. It’s a scientific drawback which impacts many individuals and which is immediately associated to Europe’s migration insurance policies,” she stated.

“I at all times make this instance: When the struggle in Ukraine began and other people in Germany, for instance, went to the Polish borders and took some individuals of their vehicles, these individuals have been by no means referred to as smugglers. The purpose was that these individuals have been doing an ethical factor.”

She added that in her view, “the general public who’re being referred to as smugglers are literally individuals on the transfer themselves, and in lots of instances, the very fact is that they didn’t have some other alternative.”

Mahtab Sabetara stated that since her father’s arrest, he has struggled to totally perceive what is occurring to him and why he’s in jail.

“He fled Iran at a second the place he didn’t have some other alternate options. He by no means thought that this could be the result.”

The European Fee has made tackling smuggling certainly one of its high priorities and in 2023 proposed laws that it stated would go after the individuals smugglers.

“We’re stepping up the struggle towards migrant smuggling and defending the individuals from falling into the arms of criminals,” European Union Commissioner for Residence Affairs Ylva Johansson stated in November. “We’re going after the smugglers, not the smuggled.”

Rights campaigners, nonetheless, have lengthy argued that harmless individuals invariably get caught up on this crackdown, pointing to instances throughout Europe through which refugees and migrants have confronted important jail time for being discovered on the wheel of a ship or a automotive after being compelled into the place.

Dimitris Choulis from the Human Rights Authorized Venture, a authorized support organisation, will likely be one of many legal professionals representing Homayoun Sabetara in courtroom.

“The primary hope is to have a good trial, a trial the place all of the procedural legal guidelines will likely be revered, and secondly is for Homayoun to exit of jail and be reunited along with his household,” he advised Al Jazeera.

Choulis, who is predicated on the Greek island of Samos, one of many most important sea arrival factors for refugees and migrants in Greece, stated he has seen a number of instances of asylum seekers being wrongly accused of smuggling.

“The distinctive factor on this case is that Homayoun’s two members of the family have discovered the instruments and the energy to struggle injustice,” he stated.

“It’s crucial to grasp that each one these individuals have names and have households – to grasp that they aren’t simply statistics.”

A 2023 report by Borderline Europe, an NGO, famous that folks convicted of smuggling type the second largest group in Greek prisons, of whom about 90 % are overseas nationals.

It stated being the one individual in a gaggle who spoke English is typically the rationale individuals discovered themselves charged.

Erik Marquardt, a member of the European Parliament for the Greens/European Free Alliance who commissioned the report, alleged in a press release despatched to Al Jazeera that the Greek authorities is “knowingly misusing legal guidelines” designed to fight trafficking to “persecute and punish those that flee to its shores searching for safety”.

“This harmful technique of deterrence just isn’t about punishing criminals, it’s about criminalising migration. The Greek authorities places individuals in prisons whose solely crime is to hunt asylum in Europe and in doing so, it’s attacking its personal rule of legislation and endangering its democracy,” he stated.

Greek ministers have persistently defended a “strict however truthful” migration coverage and spoken of the significance of tackling individuals smuggling and smuggling networks to guard Greece’s borders.

On the time of publishing, Greek authorities had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for remark.

Mahtab Sabetara, in the meantime, continues to marketing campaign for her father’s acquittal, recalling a person stuffed with humour who she used to play chess with.

“He’s a really optimistic individual,” she stated. “Or he was once a really optimistic individual.”