DAKAR: A Spanish activist who alerts coast guards to migrants drowning at sea appeared in court in Morocco this week and could face trial for human trafficking, her lawyer and colleague said, as celebrities rallied to support her.
Working with the charity Walking Borders, Helena Maleno helps to rescue boats stranded in the Mediterranean by alerting naval authorities.
“Helena is responsible for saving the lives of thousands of migrants,” Gema Fernandez, one of her lawyers, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We are hopeful that this investigation will end soon and that she will be able to continue with her human rights and humanitarian work that is so important,” said Fernandez of Women’s Link Worldwide, another group that Maleno works for.
At least 45 humanitarians have been prosecuted under anti-smuggling or immigration laws in Europe over the last two years amid growing hostility toward those who work with migrants, according to the London-based Institute of Race Relations.
More than 200 Spanish writers, musicians and celebrities, including Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem, have signed a petition condemning the investigation.
“We share the principles of defending a right to life at the borders and we reject the harassment and criminalization of Helena’s work,” it said.
Maleno appeared in court in Tangier on Wednesday to defend herself against allegations of human trafficking brought by Spanish and Moroccan authorities, Women’s Link Worldwide said.
She is due to appear in court again on Jan. 31. If the case moves forward, she could be formally charged and stand trial, Fernandez said.
“I hold onto the solidarity that you offer me on the other side of the border, but above all the example of the brave migrant communities,” Maleno tweeted after testifying.
More than 3,000 migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2017, the fourth straight year that the death toll has topped this figure, according to the UN Migration Agency (IOM).
Most migrants attempting to reach Europe from Africa take the sea route from Libya to Italy, but last year saw a spike in the number of people departing from Morocco to Spain instead.
“It is appalling that Helena is being put through this,” said Viviana Waisman, head of Women’s Link Worldwide.
“It is a clear criminalization of human rights defenders and one more step in the criminalization of migrant people.”
Actor Javier Bardem backs Spanish activist facing trial for saving migrants
Actor Javier Bardem backs Spanish activist facing trial for saving migrants
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
