Maysoon Majidi, an Iranian Kurdish activist has been acquitted of trafficking charges in a court in Italy. Majidi was arrested by Italian police in December 2023, and accused by two fellow passengers of assisting the captain of the ship on which they arrived.
Amid tears, Iranian female activist Maysoon Majidi has vowed to continue her fight, after she was acquitted of charges of human trafficking at a court in Crotone, southern Italy, on February 5.
The 29-year-old Kurdish-Iranian activist was arrested by Italy's Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) on December 31, 2023, as she disembarked from a ship carrying 77 people. She was accused by two fellow passengers -- an Iranian and an Iraqi -- of having been the assistant of the boat captain Akturk U. who confessed to the crime and is currently undergoing a fast-track trial.
Majidi has always rejected these accusations.
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Ten months of detention
The young activist was held in detention for ten months before, on February 5, she was acquitted on the basis of several witness statements by other migrants that arrived in Italy's southern port city of Crotone the same day.
The witness statements were much more detailed and considered more reliable compared to the two who had originally accused the young woman.
The public prosecutor, despite the lack of evidence, insisted during the February 5 hearing on the charges against Majidi, requesting a sentence of two years and four months.
The prosecutor stated that "no one claims that Maysoon Majidi is a regular trafficker and no one has denied that she is a human rights activist. However, not being able to pay for the ticket, she acted as an assistant for the captain of the boat filled with migrants. This qualifies as aiding and abetting clandestine migration on the basis of Article 12 of the Italian law on immigration."
Article 12, she continued, "includes every act that facilitates the irregular entrance into the state, even for humanitarian reasons."
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No plans to give up
According to Majidi's lawyer Giancarlo Liberati, "the young woman never facilitated clandestine trafficking. To the contrary, she was the first victim of the traffickers."
As the ruling was being read, the activist burst into tears alongside her brother Razhan, who was at her side.
"An innocent person," Majidi stated later when speaking to journalists, "can end up on the scaffold, but in the end be saved. Please do not judge those who come here seeking another life," she pleaded.
"Especially political refugees who flee a dictator; they come here but see their dignity taken away from them. It is necessary to avoid being close to regimes that persecute and cause us to flee. People like me are not fleeing for a better life but because they are seeking a safe place to live and continue their activism. We have a fight to continue and we do not plan on giving up."