Red-Flag Laws Can Prevent Mass Shootings

On December 16, in Madison, Wisconsin, fifteen-year-old Natalie Rupnow shot and killed two other people before taking her own life. Authorities quickly discovered that she had allegedly plotted the attack with Alexander Paffendorf, a twenty-year-old California man who admitted to having his own plan to arm himself with a gun and explosives and target a government building. 

What happened next illustrates how state laws can help—or hinder—efforts to prevent mass shootings.

Police, invoking California’s red-flag law, were able to immediately issue an emergency protective order requiring Paffendorf to surrender any firearms in his possession, potentially avoiding additional tragedy.

Red-flag laws are civil, not criminal, processes that authorize emergency orders to temporarily restrict a person’s access to firearms if there is significant concern that the person is a danger to themselves or others. While these laws vary, twenty-one states have some version in effect. Wisconsin, where the shooting took place, does not. 

Without a red-flag law, in many jurisdictions, police generally can’t separate someone from their guns until after a crime has been committed. While Paffendorf would have been arrested in any state once it was discovered that he was plotting an attack, if he lived in Wisconsin rather than California, the authorities would have had to build a criminal case against him before initially restricting his access to firearms. This could have taken more time, perhaps a few days, and there’s no telling how he might have used it.

In my work as an emergency department doctor, I care for teenagers and adults who are referred for psychiatric evaluations when they threaten to harm others or manifest other expressions of homicidal ideation, but they are not charged with a crime unless they took concrete steps to plan or implement an attack. 

Red-flag laws allow law enforcement—and in some jurisdictions, clinicians, family members, and other professionals—to petition for a protective civil action when we become aware of threats or concerning patterns of behavior that could pose a danger to others. Without laws like these, there is little we can do to prevent violence from occurring even when we know a person’s mental health is unstable or they have made a credible threat, unless their threat or actions already amount to a crime.

It’s not a crime to have a mental health crisis—nor should it be. But refusing to separate someone from their firearms until they spiral to the point of committing a crime is clearly poor planning. Unfortunately, red-flag laws have been the target of considerable political misinformation and alarmism. 

To be clear, under most red-flag laws, separation of a person at risk from their firearms is typically temporary; it requires due process of law and a hearing, and the restriction can be lifted once it becomes clear that a risk is no longer present or was not present in the first place. In most states, the gun owner retains control of the disposition of their firearms; guns typically can be stored with a licensed firearms dealer or the local police. In some states, they can even be sold for the gunowner’s profit or stored with a friend.

Due to the federal Dickey Amendment, which blocked most research about gun violence, data on red-flag laws are limited. Still, they do show significant promise in reducing firearm-related suicides. The recent launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center by the Department of Justice, which will highlight emerging practices to prevent risk, should help us better understand the impact of red-flag laws and develop best practices around them to ensure they precisely target people at high risk of violence while remaining equitable and just.  

As Madison, Wisconsin, processes yet another needless shooting, we should take stock of lessons learned. Red-flag laws are an emerging component of our response to gun violence and can help prevent a personal crisis from devolving into a public tragedy. They deserve the attention and support of anyone who cares about public safety and responsible gun ownership. 

This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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Trump Blames Biden Immigration Policy for NOLA Attack Committed by US Citizen

After a deadly vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans, Louisiana, during the New Year holiday, president-elect Donald Trump has falsely insinuated that the mass killing was carried out by an immigrant, despite the fact that the accused perpetrator was a U.S.-born citizen. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who is also a U.S. Army veteran, drove his vehicle onto Bourbon…

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An Interview with Jimmy Carter

This piece was originally published in the May 2008 issue of The Progressive magazine.

I recently got to observe Jimmy Carter in action. I attended a global conference on the public’s right to information at the Carter Center in Atlanta at the end of February 2008. I was there for the full three days, and saw Carter intimately participate in the conference. Looking much older than the President I remembered from my childhood, Carter still attended to the details, and was involved in a number of sessions. He even suggested a few amendments for the final declaration to emerge from the conference.

His work through the Carter Center has cemented his reputation for having perhaps the best post-presidency ever in U.S. history. From conflict resolution and election monitoring to fighting disease and defending human rights, the Carter Center has done substantial work on a number of fronts in its twenty-five years of existence. Carter’s latest book, Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope, is a chronicle of the various efforts that Carter has spearheaded since leaving office. And at the age of eighty-three, he still maintains a hectic schedule. Whether it’s traveling to the Middle East as part of a peace mission with Kofi Annan and Mary Robinson or heading to Nepal to monitor elections in that country, he stays involved. 

Such post-presidential endeavors helped Carter get the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, even as the Nobel Committee acknowledged his presidential accomplishments such as the Camp David Accords and the Panama Canal Treaty. 

Carter has refused to observe the self-imposed code of silence that has prevented other ex-Presidents from criticizing the policies of the incumbent. He has been particularly critical of the Iraq War, opposing it from before its start and calling it “a war based on lies.” 

But Carter hasn’t stopped there. On subjects ranging from North Korea and Cuba to Israel/Palestine and global warming, he has taken public positions that are very much at variance with Bush’s, describing the Bush Administration’s foreign policy as “the worst in history.”

Carter has faced the most intense criticism in recent years for his penultimate book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Fourteen members of the Carter Center’s advisory board resigned in protest. Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman said Carter “was engaging in anti-Semitism.” Democratic Party leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and John Conyers distanced themselves from the book.

But Carter’s reputation remains intact. It has been helped along by director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), who shadowed Carter during his book tour to make Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains, released a few months ago and just out on DVD.

At the right to information conference, Carter was in fine form. The Bush Administration has classified more secrets than any other in U.S. history, Carter stated in his speech at the opening session, pointing out that even ex-Presidents are constrained by this regime of secrecy from declassifying papers pertaining to their own Presidencies. “I look forward to more freedom from January onward,” Carter said. At the closing session, Carter remarked that “under the present Administration, the [penchant for secrecy] has gone to extremes. They’re putting a secret stamp on almost every paper they can find.” Carter then went on to mock Dick Cheney for the Vice President’s assertion, in an attempt to keep his papers secret, that he belongs to both the legislative and the executive branch.

As soon as the conference ended, I was whisked into his office for an interview while the Secret Service waited outside. The office, tastefully stacked with knick-knacks and mementoes, overlooks a garden and a pond. Carter and I sat on adjacent sofas. He was pleasant and warm and exhibited flashes of his memorable smile during the interview. He answered questions precisely and genially in that famous soft Southern lilt of his. “I’ve heard good things about this periodical,” he said when I gave him copies of The Progressive as we bade farewell.

Q: How has the post-presidency been different from your presidential years?

Jimmy Carter: I don’t think they would be comparable. As the President for four years, I was Commander in Chief of a massive military. I had three million people working under me in different ways in the U.S. government structure. I had authority to help pass laws and to negotiate treaties. I don’t have any of these authorities now, and I don’t need them. My life since the White House has been much more all-encompassing, much more enjoyable. The main thing that I’ve acquired in the last twenty-seven years has been access to the poorest and most destitute, forgotten, and suffering people on Earth. It’s not possible for a President to actually know them. But we go into the remote areas of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and actually meet with people who are suffering and find out why. Then we try to work with them, giving them maximum responsibility for correcting their own problems. So that’s the element that’s been most beneficial to me.

Q: You’ve been known as an advocate of human rights. Have the policies of the current Administration made this more difficult?

Carter: I would say more necessary. What’s been done in the last seven years is embarrassing to an American. What we have done through our own government is to torture prisoners, to deprive them of their basic rights to legal counsel, even the right of prisoners to be acquainted with the charges against them. Those kinds of things have been cherished as basic principles of American law and American policy for more than 200 years. To have them subverted and abandoned and condemned is just a travesty of justice and a very serious embarrassment to those of us who—as Americans and non-Americans—are committed to human rights.

Q: As someone who brokered the Camp David Accords, what are your thoughts on the November Annapolis Middle East conference?

Carter: I had hopes that something would come of it. So far, nothing has happened. The situation in the Holy Land—in Palestine and Israel—has not been substantially improved. The Palestinian community has been deliberately divided, one part from another, with support from both the United States and Israel. I don’t see any substantive talks taking place with United States involvement. On occasion, I think every couple of weeks or something like that, the prime minister of Israel meets with the leader of the Palestinian community, Mahmoud Abbas. But, so far as I know, they are not making

any progress. I hope that will change.

Q: What should be done?

Carter: I don’t think there’s any way for them to make substantive progress without strong influence and support and attention from the United States of America. So far as I know, the United States has not participated in any of those discussions. The world community knows the basic principles of a solution. It’s all been written out. The Arab countries unanimously—all twenty-two of them—have publicly announced that they would recognize Israel diplomatically and economically, if Israel will withdraw from the [occupied] territories and implement the basic United Nations resolutions.

It will take a lot of influence—strong influence—from the United States to make both sides come to that point.

Q: You’ve worked a lot on preventable diseases and have advocated a substantial increase in U.S. foreign aid. What would it take to eradicate diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria?

Carter: That’s one area where the Bush Administration has done a good job. President Bush has certainly advocated a dramatic increase of development assistance, particularly dealing with AIDS and malaria and, maybe, tuberculosis, and I’m very proud of that. As you know, standards have been raised for every rich country in the world to give a certain portion of their gross national product to developmental assistance. We haven’t yet reached the point that Norway and Sweden and Denmark and other countries have reached, but I think we’ve made good progress in the last few years.

Q: You made a famous trip to Cuba in 2002. With the resignation of Fidel Castro, Cuba is at a turning point. What should U.S. policy toward Cuba be now?

Carter: I would like to see the next Administration in January 2009 take the same steps that I took when I became President. I immediately lifted all restraints on travel to and from Cuba. I began to ease off on the very punitive economic embargo against the Cuban people, and we established the first phase of full diplomatic relations with Cuba with an interest section in Havana and Washington. Those offices are still there. So I would hope that the next Administration would do this. As a matter of fact, a majority of the members of the House and Senate are in favor of lifting travel restraints and easing the terms of the embargo. But they haven’t seen the necessity of passing legislation because a Bush veto is certain. They don’t have enough votes to override a veto. I think that with the next President—whether it is Republican or Democratic—they’ll have a good chance to do that.

Q: Any comments on the [2008] Democratic primary?

Carter: I’ll be glad when we have our choice made. We have two outstanding candidates, and they are very close in the number of delegates they have and in the number of votes they’ve had. I am a superdelegate, and I’ve refrained from expressing a preference between the two. But I’ll be going to the convention in Denver, and I will be trying to make sure that the candidate we choose is not only the best person to be the President but will also be the kind of person who can hold our country together.

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Greek Coast Guard Abandons Asylum Seekers at Sea Amid European Crackdown

As we move into 2025, we look at how the world is cracking down on migrants and asylum seekers, and the dangers they face when trying to flee their countries due to persecution, economic conditions, the climate crisis and more. As Greek prosecutors open a murder investigation of “unknown perpetrators” following a damning exposé of the deadly crackdown on asylum seekers by the Greek coast guard, we revisit the BBC film, Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? The investigation revealed evidence the coast guard routinely abducted and abandoned asylum seekers in the Mediterranean Sea. The film found the Greek coast guard caused the deaths of dozens of migrants over a period of three years, including of nine asylum seekers who had reached Greek soil but were taken back out to sea and thrown overboard. “We really have no real clue about the true numbers of the people that are crossing [the Mediterranean Sea]. Many people don’t make it,” producer Lucile Smith told Democracy Now! in an interview last year, when the film was released. “And when people do arrive, they tend to disappear, because … if you are caught by the authorities in Greece, you will be most likely subjected to some very serious violence.”This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. If you want to sign up for our newsletter to get a newsletter every day about all the stories that we do, you can go to democracynow.org.As we move into this new year, into 2025, we look at how the world is cracking down on migrants and asylum seekers, and the dangers they face as they flee their countries due to many conditions, from persecution to economic conditions to the climate crisis.In Greece, prosecutors have opened a murder investigation of, quote, “unknown perpetrators” following a damning exposé of the deadly crackdown on asylum seekers by Greek authorities. A BBC investigation revealed evidence of the Greek coast guard abducting and abandoning asylum seekers in the Mediterranean Sea, where thousands have died, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, as they attempt to reach Europe. The film finds the Greek coast guard caused the deaths of as many as 43 migrants in the Mediterranean over a period of three years, including of nine asylum seekers who had reached Greek soil but were taken by the Greek coast guard back out to sea, then thrown overboard. The investigation analyzes at least 15 incidents between 2020 and ’23, verifying reports made by humanitarian aid groups which have long accused Greek officials of international crimes as they target asylum seekers, often sabotaging and delaying rescue missions of those adrift at sea. Several eyewitnesses featured in the film corroborate the disturbing accounts.In a minute, we’ll bring you our interview on Democracy Now! that I did with Juan González with the BBC producer Lucile Smith about the investigation called Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? But first, this clip of [Dead Calm] that features Ibrahim, a Cameroonian migrant who says he was hunted by Greek authorities after arriving on the Greek island of Samos in 2021 and is now the focus of a new murder investigation by Greek prosecutors.
LUCILE SMITH: After crossing from Turkey, he’s now a refugee.

IBRAHIM: [translated] There were two policemen dressed in black and three others in civilian clothes. They were masked.

LUCILE SMITH: Ibrahim says he was beaten and strip-searched, and that the Greek coast guard took him and two other men out to sea.

IBRAHIM: [translated] They started with the Cameroonian. They threw him in the water. The Ivorian said, “Save me. I don’t want to die. Save me.” An incredible strength animated me. I survived.

LUCILE SMITH: He swam to safety, but the other two men died. We’ve heard allegations of a total of five separate incidents in which people were thrown into the sea by the Greek coast guard. In all, nine of them died. In a statement, the Greek coast guard strongly rejected all accusations of illegal activities and questioned the veracity of the testimonies we’ve gathered.
AMY GOODMAN: That was a clip of the BBC documentary Dead Calm: Killing in the Med? In another part of the film, a former Greek coast guard is shown footage of 12 asylum seekers being loaded into a Greek coast guard boat, then abandoned on a dinghy in the Mediterranean. He responds to the footage.
DIMITRIS BALTAKOS: I can see people getting on board the vessel, doesn’t seem like it’s forceful.

BEN STEELE: Can you see any small children?

DIMITRIS BALTAKOS: Yes, now I can. That’s something that happens. The migrants traveling the Aegean Sea, very often they abandon the children. They don’t seem to have the same affection that we have for children.

BEN STEELE: Do you have any questions about that video?

DIMITRIS BALTAKOS: I don’t. You need to understand something, that that’s not me trying to hide something. There are hundreds of videos showing the Greek coast guard saving people. Why save someone and let someone else die?

BEN STEELE: Should we take a break?

LUCILE SMITH: Yeah.

BEN STEELE: Have a cup of tea?

LUCILE SMITH: Yeah, it’s a good moment.

BEN STEELE: Yeah, yeah. Great.

DIMITRIS BALTAKOS: I’ll visit the loo.
AMY GOODMAN: During the break from the interview, the former Greek coast guard gets up from his chair. His mic is still on. He begins speaking on the phone to an unnamed person, in Greek, off camera.
DIMITRIS BALTAKOS: [translated] I haven’t told them too much? What do you think? Yes, it’s crystal clear, but what should I tell them? When you look at it from the outside, it’s very clear, isn’t it? It’s not nuclear physics. I don’t know why they did it in broad daylight. It’s clearly illegal. Obviously, obviously illegal. It’s an international crime.
AMY GOODMAN: A clip of the BBC doc Dead Calm, the former Greek coast guard caught admitting that actions by Greek authorities are, quote, “clearly illegal,” an “international crime,” in his own words.This comes as Greek officials leading an independent investigation into a deadly shipwreck last year in the Mediterranean, which led to the deaths of well over 500 asylum seekers, recently summoned the head of Greece’s coast guard to testify on eyewitness allegations the Greek coast guard tied up the vessel, attempted to pull it, causing the ship to sway, which authorities strongly denied. It would capsize and sink. The tragic event is also featured in the BBC investigation.I recently spoke with Lucile Smith, the producer of the BBC documentary titled Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?
LUCILE SMITH: The film, essentially, is a 90-minute documentary, which looks at and investigates alleged criminality by the Greek coast guard. There are two strands to it. On the one hand, we look at the Pylos shipwreck, which was the tragic story of a fishing trawler which left the port city of Tobruk last summer on the 9th of June and tried to journey to Italy, had about 750 passengers on it. But when it reached Greek territorial search-and-rescue area in the Mediterranean, it started to call for help. The Italian authorities were made aware of it. The Greek authorities were made aware of it. Frontex, Europe’s border agency, was made aware of it. And it sat there for — you know, the authorities had eyes on it for about 14 hours before it capsized. And when we started making — and, very sadly, over 600 people drowned, despite the fact that a Greek patrol vessel was there at the time of the capsizing.And so, when this catastrophe occurred, lots of journalists started to investigate. And what transpired were allegations by survivors from the shipwreck that the Greek coast guard had, in fact, attempted to tow the vessel into Italian waters, and that, in doing so, the ship capsized. And various other things started to come out, that the patrol boat also had their cameras turned off, so a lot of kind of suspicious activity that — and journalists started to ask questions.And so, when the BBC decided to commission this film, Ben Steele, the director, and I, we started investigating and looking into whether there was any kind of precedent of this sort of activity by the Greek coast guard. And unfortunately, what we found were very, very dark and serious, terrifying stories that are coming out of many of the islands that border Greece and Turkey, stories of asylum seekers, refugees, migrants arriving on Greek soil, and before they can reach a camp in order to seek asylum, they find themselves kidnapped by men in balaclavas who are armed. They say that they are often beaten. All of their belongings are removed. They are then brought onto a Greek coast guard vessel, brought out to sea and dumped in a — they call it a life raft. I wouldn’t call it a life raft. It’s a motorless dinghy, essentially, and left adrift in the sea. Sometimes the Turkish coast guard might rescue them. In fact, actually often, often they do. But what we found in our investigation was that in many cases, people die. And we found 43 deaths over 15 cases across three years.And some of the stories were just awful. I mean, you heard Ibrahim there. He very bravely gave us his testimony for this film. And in his situation, he was thrown directly into the water without a life vest. The two other individuals he was with also, they drowned, very sadly. And, you know, before that, he was badly beaten by these men in the balaclavas.And we spoke to other survivors. In one case, someone was thrown into the water whilst he had his hands zipped together. We had incidents of allegations of the Greek coast guard puncturing the life raft. In one terrible case, they failed to allegedly close the valve on the life raft. And we spoke with a survivor who lost his two children and his wife, as well as his nephew, and terrible footage, which was released by the Greek coast guard, where you watch — and 11 people drowned in that case, where you watch, you know, the father dragging their child through the water. So, just absolutely awful stories.And the more and more we read about this, it started to kind of, I guess, strengthen the stories and the allegations that were coming out over what happened with the Pylos shipwreck. And it made it seem like, potentially, Pylos, that shipwreck, the shipwreck of the Adriana, potentially was, you know, an accident waiting to happen.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lucile, could you talk about the overall militarization of the Mediterranean states of Europe against migrants coming from the Middle East or North Africa? And also, what is Frontex?LUCILE SMITH: Sure. I mean, yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. I think it’s interesting if you look at — you know, let’s look at 2015, for example. 2015, we had in Europe a million refugees coming over from Syria. And it was very much — you know, it was a shock to Europe. And at that time, I suppose you could say that, you know, particularly if you compare to what’s happening now, Europe responded fairly well. I mean, Germany accepted the million refugees. And you had humanitarian organizations going over to Lesbos and Samos and many of the islands in Greece, as well as Italy. Today — it was very much a kind of all hands on deck. And I don’t know if you remember the famous photograph of that that young child, Alan Kurdi, very sadly, who washed up on the Turkish coast. And there was a kind of outpouring of sympathy.You know, the picture today is very different. If you, as a humanitarian, want to go over to Italy or Greece and help rescue asylum seekers that are attempting to cross, you will most likely be arrested and thrown into prison and charged with smuggling. I mean, Greece’s second prison population are made up of smugglers, usually asylum seekers that are the ones that are driving the boat when they reach Greek soil. It’s a very, very different picture. I mean, if you look at the number of deaths in 2015 compared to the number of deaths in 2023, it is now 20 times deadlier. And that’s with a fraction of the number of people crossing. And even if you compared it to 2014, it’s twice as deadly, because, obviously, 2015, we had so many more people crossing. And so, it sort of begs the question of: Why is it so much deadlier? Why has it become deadlier?And Frontex is Europe’s border agency. And Europe’s border agency, which kind of manage Europe’s border, they provide petrol and money to the nation-states for coast guard vessels. They provide vessels. They also patrol the coasts of Europe. And we interview the fundamental rights officer in the documentary. But, unfortunately, they were quite unwilling to really engage and really were unwilling to talk on the record about the reality on the ground and about these allegations and the stories that are coming out of Greece. And, in fact, they became so frustrated that they walked out of the interview. Yeah.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, in effect, are some claiming that this crackdown on migrants is actually working and leading to fewer people getting into Europe?LUCILE SMITH: Well, Mitsotakis, the prime minister of Greece, would say so. He says that he’s managed to reduce migration by 90%. I don’t know how easy it is to verify that number. But, yes, you could say that it is effective. It is a deterrent. And based on the number of refugees that we spoke to, asylum seekers that we spoke to, generally, there was a kind of a reluctance to cross to Greece, and people were much keener to go to Italy. So, I suppose, yes, you could say that the level of violence that is occurring on these borders is effective in deterring people.But then again, let’s face it, you know, people are disappearing; we really have no real clue about the true numbers of the people that are crossing. Many people don’t make it. And when people do arrive, they tend to disappear, because, as I’ve just explained, you know, if you are caught by the authorities in Greece, you will be most likely subjected to some very serious violence. So, it’s very difficult to have a clear answer to that.And, I mean, you played a clip, as well, in there by a former coast guard official, who was shown some incredible evidence, shot by Fayad Mulla, who is a journalist and activist based in Austria, showing these men in the balaclavas placing asylum seekers, including a baby and children, onto a coast guard vessel, and they were eventually picked up by the Turkish coast guard. And the former coast guard official denied that they understood what they were seeing when — during the interview, but during a break, they then revealed that they felt it was a — they thought what they saw must be an international crime. And this is because this is an open secret. You know, everybody knows this is happening. The Greek government deny that it is happening, but the evidence is extremely compelling.AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about this, Lucile. And this also shows the power — LUCILE SMITH: Yeah.AMY GOODMAN: — of investigative journalism. While you say it’s an open secret, it’s astounding to hear this — you said he’s former Greek coast guard, saying, “Why did they do it in the middle of the day?” as he’s secretly saying this to someone.LUCILE SMITH: Yes, that’s right. I mean, this is just — I mean, you know, people don’t want to — it’s a very hostile environment. You know, speaking out and speaking the truth is a scary thing. And it’s obviously much easier for me to do it here sitting in London than it is for someone who is in Greece. You know, it’s perhaps a convenient truth for the rest of Europe and for many in Greece. I mean, they’ve been bearing the brunt of this for a very long time. So it’s easier to kind of turn away.But it’s very much — you know, when I first arrived on Samos to do some filming, I went to a restaurant. This is just anecdotal, but, you know, I went to a restaurant with the director and with one of our contributors. And we sat there, and someone came over to us, and they were just chatting and, you know, that, “Oh, you’re from Britain?” Well, you know, talking to us — you know, I went on a coast guard vessel. And they sort of looked at us, and it was a kind of wink, wink, shove, shove, you know, “Maybe we do pushbacks,” “pushbacks” being the term that people use, which we don’t use in the film, because we think it sort of downplays the violent nature of these illegal expulsions. But this is the thing. Everybody knows about it. And maybe it’s convenient, but no one dares speak out, because it’s a hostile environment, and it’s scary to speak the truth.AMY GOODMAN: So, where is the accountability, for example — and we’ll go into the hundreds of people who die in one incident — but of migrants being thrown overboard by the Greek coast guard? Has anyone been held accountable?LUCILE SMITH: No one has been held accountable. That’s the bottom line. You know, this is something that Frontex are aware of. It was very interesting, in the week after the film came out, you know, the journalism continues, and a news article came out in the EUobserver, as well as El País, which demonstrated some serious incident reports that had been written by — I don’t know if they were leaked or whether they got them through a Freedom of Information request. But they demonstrated that the the Fundamental Rights Office at Frontex were aware that it was very likely that people had drowned, had been thrown into the water by the Greek coast guard. And yet, nothing seems to happen, even though it says in Frontex’s regulations that if there are human rights violations, that Frontex should withdraw, or at least temporarily withdraw, withdraw in the long term, from that state where the human rights violations are occurring. But, you know, everyone knows about it. Who knows what’s being said behind closed doors? We just don’t know.There’s a petition which is going around the EU that, you know, 30 MEPs, or just more than 30 MEPs have signed, asking for the EU to investigate what’s happened. The opposition party, off the back of the BBC’s investigation, spoke out against it, said that this needs to be investigated. So, people are speaking out, but it’s kind of, you know, let’s — it’s business as usual. I mean, the week after the film came out, over a hundred people were picked up by the Turkish coast guard in Greek assets, and including, I think, 14 children. So, this seems to continue. And so far, so far to date, no accountability.AMY GOODMAN: I’m just looking at a piece in Al Jazeera that was dated June 17th. “Last summer, a shocking video of asylum seekers cable-tied and blindfolded in the back of a van on a Greek holiday island went viral online. At the time, the veracity of the video was questioned and Theodosis Nikitaras, the mayor of Kos, filed a defamation case against the NGO that published it. Now, new documents obtained from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) confirm the incident and pin the responsibility on individuals it describes as ‘likely working in concert’ with Greek authorities.” This is what you were talking about.LUCILE SMITH: Yes. I mean, I’m familiar with that video. It was posted on social media by Tommy Olsen of Aegean Boat Report, who has been screaming about this for years and who’s a consultant on the film. You know, that video, we don’t feature it in the film. BBC hasn’t verified it. But, as you say, Frontex have looked into it and have said that it is likely linked to the Greek coast guard.And what I would say, based on my experience of speaking with survivors, as well as lawyers and humanitarian organizations working on the ground, which is that, you know, I’ve heard stories of this, of people having their eyes taped. I mean, I had one terrible story that I was told, you know, of people being captured, kidnapped, brought into a prison cell, kept overnight, and were stripped naked and had their eyes taped, and then overheard someone being beaten violently. They described also electrocutions. And the next day, they were all brought onto a coast guard vessel, including this man who was, you know, barely alive and had been beaten all night. They had listened to the screams. And they put them on a — one of these motorless dinghies. And the man, they held the man in their arms, and he died in front of their eyes.So, yeah, I mean, it’s entirely plausible that that video is indeed an example of some of what’s going on linked to the Greek coast guard. But, you know, as I say, the Greek authorities do deny it. And many of the men in the balaclavas, maybe women, as well, they often remove their insignia. So it’s very difficult, really, to track down who is doing what, and it’s very easy for the Greek authorities to keep denying it.AMY GOODMAN: Lucile —LUCILE SMITH: Even though, in so many cases, you can see they’re on a Greek coast guard vessel. But yeah.AMY GOODMAN: Lucile Smith, talk about the criminalization of humanitarian workers.LUCILE SMITH: Sure. I mean, unfortunately, this isn’t something that we managed to include in the documentary. But, yes, as you say, many humanitarian workers are criminalized now. So, you would not be able to go to Greece — and Italy as well, I would add, although I’m not as familiar with Italy, but I understand that this is happening there, as well. You would not be able to go out into the sea and, if somebody is drowning or needs help or is in distress, be able to rescue them. It is entirely now managed by the state.And, you know, it’s difficult. You know, the cynic would say that what they have essentially done is removed the witnesses, so we can’t — really don’t have proper eyes on what’s going on. Others might say it shouldn’t really be up to NGOs or humanitarian workers to be doing search and rescue; it should be run by the state.But either way, you know, we know that there are many individuals — Sarah Mardini, Seán Binder — Sarah Mardini is the subject to a Netflix drama, The Swimmers. She has been criminalized for doing search and rescue. This was all the way in 2019. And she wouldn’t say, and Seán Binder, who we spoke to for this documentary, wouldn’t say that — I don’t want to speak for them — that they are smugglers. But those are the charges that they’re facing.So, it’s really a way to take back control of search and rescue, and perhaps also remove any witnesses. But, obviously, since that has happened, it would seem that this forced expulsion has become really, really common and looks, you know, very much like a policy. The repetitive nature of it looks like a policy. And there’s a clear time, 2020, when this really began and the criminalization also of humanitarian work has also begun. And that’s not to say that forced expulsions didn’t happen before then. But the scale is really quite — is dramatically bigger.
AMY GOODMAN: That was BBC producer Lucile Smith speaking about the 2024 documentary Dead Calm: Killing in the Med?, which has led to Greek prosecutors opening a murder investigation of, quote, “unknown perpetrators.” We’ll link to the film.That does it for our show. Happy News Year! I’m Amy Goodman.

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