TRIAL DATE ALERT
24 humanitarians will face felony charges at Mytilini Court, Lesvos.
4 December 2025
We welcome the news that this trial will finally take place. We have been fighting for justice for years.
About Free Humanitarians
Our mission is to defend and protect humanitarian aid workers who face criminalisation for assisting displaced people.
We do this by challenging the growing criminalisation of migration support, providing legal support, and advocating for legal protections and policy changes that protect aid workers and the integrity of humanitarian aid infrastructure in the context of migration.
UPCOMING TRIAL
After over seven years since the initial arrest,
the felony trial against 24 humanitarians on Lesvos, Greece, is finally set to begin on 4 December 2025.
For their life-saving volunteer work in Search and Rescue operations, 24 defendants face the following criminal charges:
Formation and membership of a criminal organisation (Article 187 of the Criminal Code);
Facilitation of illegal entry (Article 29 and 30 of the law 4251/14 on Foreigners);
Money laundering (1,2,3 and 45 of the law 3691/2008).
OFFICIAL FELONY CHARGES:
The defendants face 20 years’ immediate imprisonment, if found guilty of the charges.
The trial will take place at the Lesvos courthouse and is estimated to take 20 working days.
The Criminalisation of Solidarity
Protecting humanitarian aid work, is protecting the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.
Throughout our joint and individual careers, our team has stood firmly for the right to seek asylum. Defending the rights of asylum seekers and refugees means also defending those who support them. Protecting humanitarian aid work is inseparable from protecting human rights.
Over the past decade, humanitarian aid workers have been criminalised for performing legal, registered aid work — often carried out in coordination with state authorities. While we welcome scrutiny in all processes concerning vulnerable groups, including aid work, growing evidence indicates that these criminal processes are politically motivated.
Investigations drag on for years. Defendants are left in legal limbo without crucial information of their allegations and charges.
Trials are frequently marred by procedural failures: missing interpreters, weak or absent evidence, and—ironically—verdicts that ultimately acquit. In the meantime, critical humanitarian work is disrupted, reputations destroyed, and lives upended.
Sadly, our case is not an anomaly. Across the EU, human rights groups are reporting an escalating crackdown—on both humanitarian aid work, and individuals showing solidarity with asylum seekers and refugees. Alarming new trends include charging asylum seekers for having driven a boat across the sea, and under smuggling laws—effectively criminalising their own escape.
While our work is directed against the criminalisation of humanitarian aid work and aid workers, we believe that these legal attacks are interconnected.
This is part of a broader pattern. Instead of directing investigations towards registered and licensed humanitarian aid work, authorities should accept the resources and expertise that non-governmental groups can provide — especially where state responses are lacking.
Above all, we must confront the root issue at hand: the absence of legal and safe routes for asylum seekers entering the EU.
We need your help.
Free Humanitarians is a small collective, initially made up from the defendants’ close friends. Seven years on, our fight for justice has grown as we’ve recognised the wider criminalisation of humanitarian aid and people on the move across Europe.
We can’t do this alone. If you have time, energy, or money to help us raise the word, defend humanitarians from criminal charges, and get involved, then that would be so greatly received.