“If what you say is true, why didn’t you stay and fight for your country? That’s what I would have done.”
The judge had opened up the floor for members of the jury to ask questions of the defendant. Anwar* was on trial for his life. After fleeing war with his pregnant wife and kids, he’d faced torture and imprisonment en route to Europe. Here, he was welcomed with the prospect of life imprisonment. Wasn’t this the kind of “justice” he’d just escaped?
And what kind of question was that anyway? What was he really on trial for?
Outside the courtroom, his wife waited in the corridor. Her face was weary. The kids were playing in the courtyard, where the family’s supporters tried to keep them distracted and give their mother a break. It was hard to tell if they were old enough to understand what was happening.
That morning, Anwar had met his newborn daughter for the first time. He’d spent her birth imprisoned awaiting trial. What did the jury make of that reunion? It was clear as day that he was no people smuggler. They’d filed past the wife and kids on their way into court that morning and, after finding Anwar guilty of “facilitating illegal entry” to Greece – watching the judge deliver a fifty-year sentence – they passed the family again on their way out. They must have heard his daughter wail. If she didn’t know what was happening before, it had hit her now, as she watched her dad get dragged off in cuffs.
That was a while ago. Scenes like this have played out a thousand times in courtrooms around Greece and beyond. Since then, the network of solidarity fighting these cases has grown, challenging the carte blanche of prosecutors and judges. In order to secure convictions, the state has adapted its tactics. This week, CPT Aegean Migrant Solidarity reports alongside their local partners that those accused of smuggling are routinely denied the right to seek asylum. “Defendants are seen as guilty from the first moment of their arrest,” they write, “framing the narrative for their prosecution and eventual conviction.”
Measures such as this aim to rig the game. They rob defendants of the history that brought them here, because it’s easier to condemn someone if you don’t really see them. But a jury can be made to see the cruelty of the charges and the absurdity of the case when a community stands together.
*Anwar is a Pseudonym.
