Author: admin

The persistence of HIV criminalization in Finland: an interview with two experts.

Interview and text by Juulia Kela.

The use of Finnish criminal law to prosecute the transmission, exposure, or non-disclosure (not telling sexual partners about your positive HIV status) of HIV is an ongoing, understudied field of criminalization. Along with Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Finland is one of the six countries with the highest rates of prosecution per capita of people living with HIV (GNP+, 2010). To complicate matters, Finnish criminal cases about HIV transmission, exposure, or non-disclosure are held in secret – and as co-operative body of Nordic organizations for people living with HIV, HIV-Nordic stated in 2014:  

Neither has anyone counted all HIV [legal] cases in Finland. It is estimated that there has been a total of 15-20 cases. The Supreme Court of Finland has ruled in a total of five cases since 1993. 

Since this publication, there have been four more cases ruled by the Supreme Court: two in 2015, one in 2017 and one in 2021. These cases represent a variety of details, including whether or not the virus was transmitted. However, what these cases share is the stigmatizing effect they have. As director of NGO Positiiviset ry Sini Pasanen puts it:  

It has definitely been one of the most stigmatizing matters, for sure the one that causes the most uncertainty.  Many people living with HIV have said that they have feelings like they are some kind of criminal. The removal of that label is still being waited for.  
Of course, the label of criminal is not what the case really is, but rather, it lives in people’s perceptions: people don’t know how they can have sex, whether it’s enough that you’ve told someone – because who will prove whether you have or haven’t? It has really been the greatest burden, this question of criminality and the lack of certainty over the matter that has bothered people. 
And the fact is that people living with HIV are regular people who haven’t been in contact with criminal law before, and then, all of a sudden, they’re told that if they have sex they can be charged under criminal law. 

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled over two cases in which the criminal liability of the accused was brought into question. In both cases, the accused had had unprotected sex without disclosing their HIV status. In both cases, the accused was taking HIV medication and did not transmit the virus. Only one of these decisions was overturned, leaving many ambiguities over the status of HIV criminalization in Finland.  

On September 15th 2021, the Finnish Supreme Court overturned a conviction of aggravated assault for an HIV positive individual who had not disclosed their status to their partner. The accused was on medication – and therefore could not transmit the virus to the partner. Does this mean that the ‘gap’ between the medical fact of un-transmissibility and the use of criminal law in ‘controlling’ HIV is closing? In order to find out about the significance of the decision and the state of HIV criminalizations in Finland, I spoke to two NGO experts in October 2021.  

Sini Pasanen is the Executive Director of Positiiviset ry and has worked on HIV advocacy on Nordic and European levels.  

Teppo Heikkinen is a specialist at NGO Hivpoint and works with men who have sex with men.  

J: What significance does the new Supreme Court decision have regarding the criminalization of HIV in Finland?   

Teppo: The interpretation of the Criminal Code is changing and of course we’re pleased with that – how if you have an undetectable viral load and have treatment and if you don’t disclose your status, then the consequences won’t be as they were before – you might not end up in jail. 

Sini:  The Supreme Court decision has been long-awaited – and it’s good that we’re finally getting some clarity on the matter because so far, it’s all been very unclear. There are a few factors in this case that are of interest to us – that the ejaculation was onto a sheet, that there was intercourse only once – but what about if there had been more than one time, or what if the situation was somehow different? 
And then there’s still the question of an HIV positive individual who is not on medication – or has, for some reason – there are a few rare cases where the viral load does not drop to undetectable levels despite medication – we can’t let it be assumed that they are somehow criminal. 
But still, this doesn’t stop anyone from going to make a report to the police. The fact is that the transmission and exposure of HIV is under criminal law – and how we interpret this law is not explicit in criminal law itself. This also means we don’t have a specific part of the law to change. So, to an extent, we’re still having to work with people’s images and perceptions. 
But the Supreme Court decision is still very welcome and gives us at least some clarity. Still, I don’t personally think that the job here is done, and that we can all lay back now because everything is clear and there is no problem – this is not the situation.   

J: And so, there are ambiguities left over – who has the say over these? Who can say what will happen? 

Sini: Nobody!  It has been a cat-and-mouse game where the judicial system demands that doctors tell patients who have received a positive status that they may end up getting charged for non-disclosure … and then when doctors tell patients that this is the case, the judiciary appeals back to the fact that look, doctors have told patients – so there must be a problem here.   
It’s totally fair that doctors tell their patients that they may end up in court – but then the judiciary ends up interpreting that as doctors tell their patients this, the people who end up in court must be guilty. 

J: What does the history of criminalizing HIV look like in Finland?  

Sini: Everywhere in the world where the spreading of or exposing someone to HIV has been criminalized, the first person who has been charged has been an immigrant whose photo has ended up published in media.    

J: And this is the case in Finland too, right?   

Sini: In Finland as well, yes. The first several whose pictures have been published in media have been immigrants. And personally, I think it sets the thought of what’s being done here.  

J: Criminal charges have fallen somewhat with the development of medication & knowledge about HIV transmissions – from attempted manslaughter in the earlier 2000s to assault now. How do you see the relationship between scientific knowledge about HIV transmission and the law? 

Sini: Well, I think that Finland is very behind on this. I don’t understand how we can have a judicial system that doesn’t believe in scientific research. That’s neatly what this is about.  
… the entire scientific community is behind the fact that HIV doesn’t spread if you’re on medication – and yet we haven’t seen this fact being taken into account in criminal cases in Finland.   
And it’s very strange and problematic that we have closed trials in Finland. The trials around the transmission of and exposure to HIV are closed and secret. We don’t know what they talk about in there. It’s difficult to go and change anything when we don’t even know what they’ve been discussing. 

Teppo: But at the same time, doctors have also given out fair statements during criminal cases – saying that HIV is not transmissible if the viral loads aren’t at measurable levels – so they’ve been in a central role, in a way, in pushing for change in this legal practice.  

J: I’ve heard that in the 2000s the police were still tracking HIV cases in criminal cases and that NGOs have asked why the cops have been doing this and not health services? 

Teppo: … and then to think that media images [of people accused of spreading the virus] were just circulating publicly, and the knowledge that the police are doing this … so it has definitely impacted those who have been living with HIV.  
… and it must have been terrifying and worrying about what kinds of processes you might end up being caught in even if you had acted ‘responsibly’ and been protected. 

Sini: This is still going on – and has been going on very recently – it has not been long at all since the police have last been doing this. Unfortunately, they’ve thought because of the law that this is the correct thing to do.  

J: How can this be happening, how is this in the hands of the police and not healthcare workers?    

Sini:  Exactly .. good question.  It’s criminal law that enables this. But no expert on this agrees that it should be the police who track these cases but healthcare workers.  And we have cases where someone has told somebody that they have the virus, and this happened recently – and this partner went to the police and not even to take an HIV test first – but rather to the police to go and report them. Just last year. 

J: What challenges lie ahead in NGO work related to HIV criminalizations, and what other images of criminality or realities are you tackling in your work? 

Teppo: When I follow press announcements related to HIV, it’s regrettable how people living with HIV are still portrayed. On World Aids Day it’s a bit different and more appropriate, but otherwise, in Finnish and international news there’s still this negative image, one about the ‘dangerousness’ of people living with HIV. 
Maybe around five years ago in Joensuu – someone had spat at a police officer, which is of course rude – but it was reported that the officer had immediately taken an HIV test. So, around five years ago it obviously still wasn’t clear to the police that spitting isn’t a way to contract the virus. So this knowledge, when it comes to groups other than healthcare professionals and HIV specialists … is still quite bad.  

Sini: HIV infection and stigma related to HIV intersects with other marginal groups strongly – those who use drugs, those in sex work, sexual and gender minorities. Intersectional stigma comes about from this and is experienced – people are criminalized from several different angles – drug use is criminalized, and while sex work isn’t criminalized directly, there are traits present related to buying and selling sex that might prevent people from accessing help.  

We can’t say that HIV is just a chronic illness – today, it’s more of a social illness than a chronic one defining people’s lives. 

References: 

HIV-Nordic (2014) Annual reports. http://hiv-norden.org/documents.html.  

GNP+ (2010) The Global Criminalisation Scan Report 2010. https://www.hivpolicy.org/Library/HPP001825.pdf.  

Crimline: Crime and Punishment of Women in Germany

by Friederike Faust

Why do women commit crime, and how should they be punished? This CrimLine reconstructs in excerpts how the social image of criminal women, corresponding criminological explanations as well as penal policies have changed in Germany.

Delinquency and norm violations by women have always been in particular need of explanation, as they diverge with conceptions of the female nature and role. Linked to the question of the causes and motives of female criminality is the question of the appropriate and effective punishment of women.

This CrimLine is intended to help understand how today’s women’s penal system is organized legally and politically. The CrimLine reveals the social morals and imaginaries about female crime that come to shape the contemporary treatment of incarcerated women. Spectacular criminal cases will be used to illustrate how women’s crimes are dealt with differently over the years and in accordance with changing social gender relations. These social debates also reflect the paradigm shifts in the criminological theorization of female delinquency. At the same time, criminology as an applied science influences national and international penal politics and legislation, and thus has sever impact on the everyday experiences of sentenced and imprisoned women.

Vom unverbesserlichen Gewohnheitsverbrecher zum gefährlichen Sexualstraftäter: Sicherungsverwahrung in Zeiten von Corona.

Von Hildegard Wahle und Friederike Faust

Im Jahr 2020 befanden sich in Deutschland 589 Personen in Sicherungsverwahrung, eine davon war eine Frau. Die Sicherungsverwahrung betrifft vor allem jene Personen, die schwere Gewalt- oder Sexualstraftaten begangen haben und bei denen auch nach Ende der Haftstrafe eine erhebliche Gefährlichkeit vermutet wird. Die Sicherungsverfahrung in Deutschland ist daher der rechtlichen Definition nach keine Strafe sondern eine Maßregel. Da sie sich an eine verbüßte Haftstrafe anschließt, dient sie nicht dem Schuldausgleich sondern der gesellschaftlichen Sicherheit und Prävention. Ihr Maß bemisst sich nicht, wie das der Strafe, an der Schuld des*r Täter*in sondern an seiner*ihrer Gefährlichkeit. Anders als die Haftstrafe kann sie auf unbegrenzte Zeit veranlasst werden. Regelmäßige Begutachtungen entscheiden dann über die Möglichkeit einer Entlassung. 

Hildegard Wahle war lange Zeit für die AIDS-Hilfe Soest tätig. Dort beriet und begleitete sie inhaftierte Menschen in der nahegelegenen Justizvollzugsanstalt Werl. Seit ihrer Pensionierung begleitet und unterstützt sie ehrenamtlich einige Männer in der Sicherungsverwahrung. Hier erzählt sie aus dem Alltag in der Sicherungsverwahrung.

Seit mehr als fünf Jahren begleite ich nun in der JVA Werl zwei unterschiedliche Gruppen in der Sicherungsverwahrung (SV). Einmal im Monat, immer am frühen Abend, treffen wir ehrenamtlichen Betreuer*innen uns für circa zwei Stunden mit den Gruppen in der Anstaltskirche. Die Gruppen existieren schon viele Jahre und werden von Seelsorgern der JVA hauptamtlich begleitet. In der einen Gruppe reden wir über all jene Themen, die die Männer so umtreiben. Sehr persönliche Angelegenheiten werden jedoch vorrangig in Einzelgesprächen mit den Ehrenamtlichen erörtert. Die andere Gruppe beschäftigt sich mit Bibel- und Meditationstexten , wobei aber auch persönliche  Anliegen der SVer immer Vorrang und Platz haben. Nun sind die Herren in der SV  sehr betrübt, weil seit der Coronawelle im März 2020 alle Aktivitäten wie Gruppentreffen, Einzelbesuche usw. nicht mehr stattfinden dürfen. Das Wenige, was die Untergebrachten hatten, ist nun auch erst mal nicht möglich.

Neben der Begleitung der Gruppen habe ich auch zwei Herren in Einzelbetreuung. Kurzzeitig waren Einzelbesuche unter erschwerten Schutzmaßnahmen erlaubt. Doch inzwischen können sie auch nicht mehr stattfinden. Einer der Herren, der sowohl zur Gruppe kommt als auch von mir einmal monatlich besucht wird, hält telefonisch Kontakt zu mir. Er ruft mindestens einmal wöchentlich an. Grundsätzlich wäre es möglich, dass ich ihn anrufen kann, aber der Sicherungsverwahrte hat nicht nur die Kosten für ein Gespräch nach Außen, sondern auch für ein Gespräches von Außen nach Innen zu tragen. Und die Telefonkosten in Haft sind teuer: Die Kosten für eingehende Anrufe belaufen sich auf pauschal 15 € monatlich, die Kosten für die Einheit von der JVA nach draußen belaufen sich auf 0,04 €. Daher verzichtet er darauf angerufen zu werden.

Die Sicherungsverwahrung wurde 1933 mit dem Gesetz gegen gefährliche Gewohnheitsverbrecher entsprechend damaliger europaweiter strafrechtlicher Veränderungen und beeinflusst von der Strafrechtslehre Franz von Liszts eingeführt. Sie reagiert damit auf die damals virulente Figur des unverbesserlichen Gewohnheitsverbrechers, über die sich die Forderung und Praxis legitimiert, regelmäßig rückfällige Straftäter*innen dauerhaft und unter besonders harten Bedingungen unschädlich zu machen. Die Maßregel der Sicherungsverwahrung wurde schnell von den Nationalsozialist*innen missbraucht: Bereits 1934 wurde sie 3723 mal angewendet und zur Demonstration nationalsozialistischer Ordnungspolitik genutzt. Sie fand vor allem Anwendung bei wiederholter kleinerer und mittlerer Vermögenskriminalität. Auch wenn das Gewohnheitsverbrechergesetz nach 1945 unverändert fortbestand, so ging die Anordnung der Sicherungsverwahrung deutlich zurück und die Gerichte zeigten sich zurückhaltender, einen solch gravierenden Eingriff in die Freiheit anzuordnen. Schließlich wurden die gesetzlichen Voraussetzungen für die Sicherungsverwahrung sogar verschärft: So wurde Ende der 1960er Jahre entschieden, dass sie nur noch als Mittel zur Bekämpfung schwerster Kriminalität bei nicht besserungsfähigen Täter*innen verhängt werden dürfe; sie wurde zudem auf maximal zehn Jahre beschränkt. Bis 1996 sank die Zahl der Sicherungsverwahrten auf 172. Nun befanden sich hauptsächlich Sexual- und Gewalttäter*innen in Verwahrung.

Die JVA Werl ist die zweitgrößte Haftanstalt für Männer in NRW und die einzige Anstalt des Landes mit einer Sicherungsverwahrung. Für die insgesamt ca. 900 Strafgefangenen stehen drei Häuser mit 686 Einzelhafträumen, 50 Zwei-Mann-Hafträume und 36 Drei-Mann-Hafträume zur Verfügung. Die zusätzlichen 140 Sicherungsverwahrte leben nach Verbüßung ihrer Strafe in einem separaten Wohnheim in Einzelzimmern. Um dem vom Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte angemahnten Abstandsgebot zwischen Maßregel und Haft gerecht zu werden und den Unterschied zwischen Strafe und SV deutlich zu machen, wird von Zimmern gesprochen, nicht von Zellen. Die Zimmer der Einzelnen sind sehr gut ausgestattet. Sie verfügen über eine große Nasszelle und eine Pantryküche (Miniküche).  So besteht auch die Möglichkeit des gemeinsamen Kochens. Zudem hat jede Abteilung auch eine Gemeinschaftsküche, die nach Absprache genutzt werden kann. Ebenso stehen Gefrierfächer zur Verfügung, um das beim Einkauf erworbene Gefriergut sachgerecht lagern zu können.

Die Zimmer der SVer sind alle mit einem Telefon ausgestattet. Anrufe aus der Anstalt müssen genehmigt werden. Ebenso müssen Personen, die angerufen werden, ihre Zustimmung geben.  Gespräche, die von den Zimmern aus geführt werden,  können abgehört werden. Kontakt über Briefe ist jederzeit möglich, weshalb ich auch hin und wieder schreibe. Die Herren freuen sich immer wieder über Post von Außen, die nicht vom Gericht, der Staatsanwaltschaft oder dem Anwalt kommt. Selber zu schreiben haben sie jedoch keine Lust.

Da tagsüber die Zimmertüren nicht verschlossen sind, können sich die Untergebrachten frei in ihrer Abteilung bewegen. Einige Herren kochen auch gemeinsam, hören Musik oder schauen sich DVDs an. Es besteht die Möglichkeit, sich Musik und Filme über entsprechende Versandhäuser zu besorgen. Damit ist zwar für etwas Kurzweil gesorgt,  nichtsdestotrotz ist die Zeit für die SVer noch schwieriger und einsamer als vor Corona. Einige der Untergebrachten arbeiten in den JVA ansässigen Betrieben wie Holz- und Metallverarbeitung. Einer ist auch als Hausarbeiter tätig. Der Verdienst hierfür richtet sich nach den Tätigkeiten.

Während der Lockdowns fanden Freizeitangebot wie Sport und Gruppentreffen – auch Therapiegruppen – nicht statt.  Eine Zeit lang waren auch die Betriebe geschlossen. Einzig die Bäckerei und Küche wurden betrieben.  Mittlerweile ist auch das Arbeiten unter Einhaltung der sogenannten Corona-Regeln in den Betrieben wieder möglich.

In den 1990er Jahren wird die Sicherungsverwahrung von Politik und Gesellschaft wiederentdeckt. Die kriminalpolitischen Debatten werden fortan vom Thema Sicherheit und Prävention geprägt. Ein Anstieg in der Alltagskriminalität führt zu einer größeren Verunsicherung der Bevölkerung, die Angst vor eigener Viktimisierung steigt. Hohe Rückfallquoten unter Haftentlassenen lassen Zweifel am Resozialisierungsmodell des Strafvollzugs aufkommen. In den Massenmedien dramatisiert sich die Berichterstattung über Kriminalität und die Aufdeckung dramatischer Fälle von Kindesmissbrauch und -tötung schockieren die Öffentlichkeit. Politische Entscheidungsträger*innen geraten unter Handlungsdruck. Ihre Reaktionen zielen vorranging auf die Beruhigung des öffentlichen Unsicherheitsempfindens und orientieren sich weniger an der Lösung bzw. Reduzierung konkreter Gewaltphänomene. In diesem Sinne tritt 1998 das „Gesetz zur Bekämpfung von Sexualdelikten und anderen gefährlichen Straftaten“ in Kraft, das fortan die Unterbringung in der Sicherungsverwahrung im Anschluss an die Strafhaft erleichtert; die Höchstdauer von zehn Jahren wird rückwirkend aufgehoben.

Die SVer richten schon seit vielen Jahren Gemeinschaftsfeste wie Frühlings-, Sommer- oder Herbstfest aus, wobei immer auch gegrillt wird. Von einer einheimischen Fleischerei wird entsprechend Fleisch bezogen. Genaue Mengenangaben der Einzelnen werden per Sammelauftrag bestellt. Andere Lebensmittel und Getränke werden über den Anstaltslieferanten bezogen. Im jeweiligen Abteilungsflur werden die Tische themenbezogen eingedeckt. Ein besonderes Highlight ist die Adventsfeier. Zu diesen Festen werden neben Angehörigen auch wir Ehrenamtlichen sowie die zuständigen Betreuungsbeamten*innen und der Anstaltsleiter eingeladen. Wir Ehrenamtliche lernen bei dieser Gelegenheit die zuständigen Beamt*innen, die auch häufiger mal wechseln, kennen.

Wie vieles anderes mussten und müssen auch diese Feste und Veranstaltungen leider Corona bedingt ausfallen. Alle haben die AHA Regeln, also Abstand – Hygiene – Alltagsmaske, einzuhalten. Seit dem 24. Mai 2020 sind einige Fälle von Covid-Erkrankungen in der JVA aufgetreten. Alle Häftlinge und SVer mussten sich daher in ihren Zellen bzw. Zimmern aufhalten. Weder Umschluss noch gegenseitige Besuche waren erlaubt. Inzwischen wurde der größte Teil der Insassen geimpft und Besuche können unter Auflagen wieder stattfinden. Doch die Gruppentreffen bleiben jedoch weiterhin abgesagt.

Literatur

Drenkhahn, Kirstin & Christine Morgenstern 2012. Dabei soll es uns auf den Namen nicht ankommen – Der Streit um die Sicherungsverwahrung. Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 124(1), URL: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zstw-2012-0005/html

Laubenthal, Klaus 2007. Die Renaissance der Sicherungsverwahrung. In: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 116:3. URL: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zstw.116.3.703/html

Sex in Public: The Legal Regulation of Sex in Public in the Mirror of Time.

Anyone who practices sex in public in Germany today must expect criminal consequences. Section 183a of the German Penal Code regulates the local circumstances in which sexual acts may take place. It criminalizes people who intentionally or willfully annoy other people by having sex in public, and threatens them with a fine or imprisonment of up to one year. The paragraph primarily targets and regulates two forms of consensual sex: sex work and cruising.

Sex in public, however, has not always been regulated and punished in the same way. The regulation of sex in public is subject to multifaceted changes and thus also points to changing notions of decency and morality. It raises the questions: How can sexuality be articulated in the public sphere? Who feels disturbed by whom and what? What is considered a public nuisance? Where should who be protected from sexualized or gender-based assaults?

A brief look back into history shows that sexuality in public space was once negotiated along completely different lines. In ancient Athens in 800 B.C., sex was considered a transitive act, an action that was not reciprocal. In the excavation site of Pompeii, there are wall paintings that show evidence of permissive, sexual acts in bathhouses or brothels. It was not until the emergence of modern notions of intimacy and the bourgeois nuclear family that the structural separation of public and private spheres emerged. Sexuality and intimacy were assigned to the private, closed space and limited to it.

This separation is reflected today in §183a: certain public sexual practices are regulated and criminalized with reference to a mandate to protect. In the jurisprudence, reference is made to a so-called “objective third party” who is disturbed by the sexual practices. This “objective” or also “imagined third party” (Barnert 2018) functions as an argumentation figure, stands outside of the event and forms a bridge between abstract law and concrete life. In doing so, this figure of argumentation is supposed to help find a yardstick in the “flickering between facts and norm” (Kocher 2019: 408). Sociologists of law such as Eva Kocher (2019) have shown that the sense of shame and decency attributed to this figure is based on contemporary values and notions of citizenship, paternalism, and reason. By inscribing implicit bourgeois-modern notions of intimacy and sexuality, privacy and publicity into criminal law via the figure of the “objective third,” regulation operates beyond the mere framing of sexual practices (Berlant & Warner 1989: 553-557); it promotes the separation of private life from the public sphere of wage labor, politics, and public space.

Literature

Barnert, E. (2008): Der eingebildete Dritte: Eine Aurgumentationsfigur im Zivilrecht. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Bartz, D. (2002): Die Scham erobert den Ozean der Liebe. Mare, die Zeitschrift der Meere. https://www.mare.de/die-scham-erobert-den-ozean-der-liebe-content-2505.
Zuletzt abgerufen: 20.06.2021.

Berlant, L., & Warner, M. (1998): Sex in Public. Critical Inquiry, 24(2), 547-566.

Fagan, B. M. (1998): Clash of cultures. AltaMira Press, Lanham.

Halperin, D. M. (1989): Is There a History of Sexuality? History and Theory,
28(3), 257.

Fradella, H.F. & Sumner, J. M. (2016): Sex, Sexuality, Law, and
(In)justice. Routledge.

Roth, N. (2014): Freundschaft und Liebe. Codes der Intimität in der höfischen
Epik des Mittelalters. Frankfurt. https://d-nb.info/1149289295/34.
Zuletzt abgerufen: 20.06.2021.

Stumpp, B.E. (1998): Prostitution in der römischen Antike. Berlin

Vokery, C. (2010): Gassigehen mit Glücksgefühl. Spiegel Panorama Online. https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/freiluft-sex-in-england-gassigehen-mit-gluecksgefuehl-a-723214.html.
Zuletzt abgerufen: 20.06.2021.

Text and timeline were created in the context of the MA seminar “Crime, Criminalization, and Gender” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (summer semester 2021). We would like to thank Sabrina Bahlo, Tülin Fidan, Melina Madoures, Sabrina Mainz, JJ Maurer and Muriel Weinmann for their permission to publish the timeline on our blog. The group work was summarized by Carmen Grimm.

“Chaos on the sea map”: Interview with the second officer of a sea rescue ship in times of criminalization

Translation of an interview conducted by Jérémy Geeraert in German.

Jochen grew up in a middle-class family in the Ruhr area. He dropped out of his business studies shortly after starting, and decided to train as a ship’s captain. Initially it was easy to find work after his training, but the situation has deteriorated since the financial crisis of 2007. After losing his job as an officer in a large shipping company, he entered a period of unemployment that lasted more than three years, with only casual jobs on tourist boats. In 2019, he heard, rather by chance, that NGO boats doing sea rescue in the Mediterranean were looking for captains. Although his search for employment was unsuccessful, he was able to volunteer as a captain’s leader (Kapitänsmattführer) on a rescue mission. Jochen was involved in the rescue of 104 people trying to reach Europe by rubber dinghy.

In the excerpts from the interview conducted with Jochen for the CrimScapes project, the effects of criminalization in the field of humanitarian sea rescue become clear.

I. Entering the boat: “The most meaningful thing you can do with a captain’s patent”

[…] Interviewer: First of all, before you heard about [the NGO], what had you heard about sea rescue before?

Jochen: Yes, I heard about it in passing, that it was a big problem here, and when I got the job offer here, the Carola Rackete thing had just come up, that was actually exactly the time.

I: Did you follow that?

J: I followed it, of course.

I: How did you perceive it, what did you think?

J: Well, I have the greatest respect for what this woman has achieved and done, and to be honest, I wouldn’t want to change places with her at the moment. To be in the public eye like that. […]

I: And is that for you, is that a job, so to speak?

J: Yes, that is for one out of unemployment, but I also consider it somehow as winning the lottery, somehow then in the end that it is a job that you really like to do, and which is somehow the most meaningful thing that you can do with a captain’s patent. So, it’s better than just driving tin cans back and forth.

I: And can you still remember what you thought when this request came? What questions did you ask yourself or what were your expectations and ideas?

J: Yes, as I said, I was immediately enthusiastic about it. So, I hardly thought about it, and then I read a little bit about the legal situation. I hadn’t necessarily intended to lose my patent because of that, but … since that was the case until now….

I: You can’t lose it?

J: So far, no one has been sentenced for private sea rescue. All court cases have ended with the acquittal of the defendant. […]

So what we do, that is by international law even mandatory, more or less. If you are on the way with a ship and you get to know about an emergency at sea, you have to help. And that beats any national law and any Salvini decrees, so I don’t worry about it. […]

II: At sea: “Chaos on the chart” or rescuing between warning shots, border lines, decrees and storm warnings

I: You had a clear assignment, right?

J: Exactly. Yes, that was the task that I more or less took on. So officially it was never really regulated, but I practically went up on the bridge after breakfast and then went down from the bridge before going to bed. Simply because the others had more experience in looking after guests, I kept their backs free, and that’s how I saw my role here.

I: So [Helene (name of the ship)] went on her first mission. When did it leave?

J: We were on the road for two weeks. got on in Barcelona, where we made the steamer a bit more ready, did a few repairs that weren’t quite finished yet. So the drinking water system and so on, there was a bit of a botch-up that had to be fixed. Then we set off, made another stopover in (…Cagliari…), refueled, fixed a few things that still hadn’t worked, drove from there to just outside Libya, before Tripoli – Tripoli, no? – and positioned ourselves outside the 24-mile zone, and on the way there we saw the first dinghy that had been flooded and was really only suspended from a single chamber.

I: Without people.

J: Without people on it, without somehow a mark that someone had retrieved it. The people had… drowned, to be blunt.

I: How big was it?

J: Such a rubber dinghy, as we have taken up in the end, 80, 100 people may have been that. Floating there like that, according to the bird shit that was on it, for two, three days probably already…. We then went to our observation position afterwards, because we were doing an observation mission and not an official rescue mission. You’re not allowed to do that as a private motor yacht. Uh, we received a distress call, i.e. a position report from a rubber dinghy, went there at night, searched for three hours, but found nothing, returned to our position, barely arrived there, and received the next position report.

I: From the same ship, from the same boat.

J: No, from another boat, that was probably a rubber dinghy with 86 people, including women, children on it, that’s what we were actually looking for and then we found our boat. So what happened to the other boat … we can only speculate.

I: We don’t know.

J: You never know.

I: What kind of boat was it?

J: Yes, it was a rubber boat, about ten meters long, I’d say, (…). Broken outboard motor, no more drinking water on board, the first air chamber was already broken, the second air chamber broke when we started to rescue the people, so two or three hours later they would have been drowned. […]

I: Could you describe the crew on board, how many people were there, what kind of people, with what kind of tasks?

J: Well, in the end we left with, let me not be wrong, seven. The captain, the first officer, me as second, Georg as third, we had a doctor with us, a cook and two reporters.

I: Reporters – from?

J: Freelance.

I: Freelance… why did they have an assignment for…?

J: Yes, they had an assignment, they accompanied us, but they also collaborated. […]

I: And the media, what is their function on board? Why are they with us now as media people?

J: Well, once to report on the situation, what is happening here in the Mediterranean. To draw attention to it, and I have to say quite honestly, I was also glad that they were there, because that simply brought a bit of security.

I: Yes, in what form?

J: Well, when we retrieved the dinghy and took the people from the boat, a speedboat from the Libyan coast guard came. And there were also situations where they fired warning shots at such NGO boats. […]

I: But that didn’t happen in your case?

J: That didn’t happen with us.

I: How did it happen, how did they come? And then?

J: Yes, they just arrived (exhales), came at us at full speed, then drove relatively close to us, actually quite too close, if you consider the condition of the rubber dinghy, which could have filled up at the moment. And then, of course, it’s nice if someone somewhere is filming the whole event with a camera, and you can also see that there are somehow webcams on top of the roof, and that you can imagine that this is also being streamed live. 

I: So securing evidence.

J: Securing evidence, in case they would have still somehow freaked out, there.

I: This also means that you yourself, that what you do yourself is also recorded, is also a security, right?

J: That too, yes. And a nice memory, apart from that.

I: How long did this rescue operation take until they were all on board?

J: About half an hour, an hour. First we sent the rubber dinghy ahead, packed life jackets on it. We actually assumed that the boat with the nearly 80 people, they first distributed the life jackets, but then went back again, because that was just too few. In the meantime, we approached the position and wanted to bring the people on board individually via our rubber dinghy, simply so that things would run a little more smoothly. If everyone wants to climb over the edge, wants to climb on board, such a boat is of course bad (…tuned…) and can also tip over sometimes.

J: But when the coast guard came, we more or less ignored it, pulled the boat alongside with boat hooks and let them climb over the railing so that it would go faster. […]

J: So ‘picked an eye, in between then the rubber is also torn there, where I had held that. So to call that a rubber boat at all, that’s a bit of a euphemism, that was better tent material, I’d say.

I: What kind of people were on the boat? Can you tell?

J: Yes, a total of 109. There were two Egyptians, there were Sudanese, and there were – let me not say anything wrong – Libyans, I think, but I have to check again. The youngest was thirteen, had been traveling alone for a year, and that went on until … almost early 30s, I would say, almost all young men. […]

I: And how can I imagine it here, on the ship, with so many people? Where was everybody?

J: (laughs slightly) All on deck.

I: How big is the ship, how long is it?

J: 25 meters long and about five meters wide. Half of it is superstructure (Aufbauten). So in purely mathematical terms, we have just under half a square meter per person. And you can imagine that it’s going to be very cramped.

I: Yes. So they were all on deck, right?

J: They were exclusively on deck. So in the superstructures, of course we had to work accordingly, prepare food, we couldn’t have any of the people sitting around. Only at the end, in the storm night, where the water stood half a meter on deck, we took them in with us, of course, otherwise they would have been washed over the edge.

I: You’ll have to explain that to me a bit more. What happened there? So you took them all on board, to stay in order, and… where did you go?

J: First we drove to Malta, tried to get in. We didn’t get an entry permit.

I: Yes, how long did that take?

J: That was a total of nine nights.

I: So they were on board for eight nights in total?

J: Exactly, and it took us about a day to get to Malta. So we were just drifting around for a week. […] We made sure that we didn’t run into the twelve-mile zone. Then we drove on towards Italy that day, because there was a storm warning for the next two or three (…days…), and Italy was a bit more sheltered. And the storm hit us at night as well.

I: Yes, after how many days?

J: Yes, the ninth night, as I said, we had no choice but to continue to Italy, because the wind was coming from the south. And we sailed in such a way that we offered as little attack surface as possible, so always with the wind…

I: Because there were people on board.

J: Because the people were on board. So that the ship becomes a little calmer, there partly then still a little on the open sea or less, if somehow ‘ne wind gust has come, the course changed. That looked quite chaotic afterwards, on the electronic sea chart. .. Yes, it was seven, eight wind forces, as I said, water level about half a meter on deck, where the people were sitting, all of them, and that was really the time when it all became a maritime emergency for us, too. Because this was an untenable condition, we had to enter.

I: So there was no permission from the Italian coast guard?

J: There was no permission, so we announced ourselves, said we were coming in, and if we didn’t get permission, we would declare ourselves as a maritime emergency, so the Italian coast guard would have to save us, they would have been obliged to. They are there, yes (laughs) we also had, this time yes we also had a Salvini decree even against us. So on the day when the government was dissolved, Salvini wrote a decree again, so to speak, in order to bring us in under the threat of a penalty of one million banned. Uh, yes (grins), I now amuse me deliciously about it. We are here, Salvini is gone. Yes, as I said, we announced ourselves, kept in touch by radio, they sent a boat to meet us, from the Guardia Financia, they saw the conditions on board and then realized that they had to let us into the port. So in the end we did have permission to enter the port.

I: And, uh, why was the ship confiscated?

J: Puhhh…

I: What is the accusation if, if they let you enter?

J: Well, you’ll have to ask the lawyers about that, because we violated this Salvini decree.

I: Well, okay.

J: But, as I said, we acted strictly in accordance with international law, and international law takes precedence over national law.

III. On deck: Emergency supplies and leisure time activities

I: So, let’s take a quick look back before we go in. Um, how is it, how can you imagine it here, on board, the week where you were so full? How did it go, what happened? How did the days go? Where did they sleep, how did they eat…was there medical care? Can you briefly describe all of that a little bit?

J: Well, the people just sat on deck all day. Of course, they had almost nothing to do. We tried to set a highlight every day. A shower built up for that everyone could shower for two minutes, with bell in front, bell at the end, fresh clothes handed out. One day we drove the people with our rubber dinghy a little bit through the area… as an action program, I would say, more or less, to kill time. One day we gave out some playing cards, but that caused a bit of a quarrel on deck, … which resulted in the guests collecting the cards themselves, because they wanted to be as quiet as possible and didn’t want to have any trouble with us. Food (exhales), couscous, in the morning and in the evening, is just the only thing that you can prepare on such a normal stove, a normal kitchen stove, for a hundred people. In other words: three kilos each, I think it was, in a ten-liter cleaning bucket, hot water on it, and the whole thing then with beans, with tuna, with chocolate, however a little flavor brought in; a plastic cup full, morning and evening. A little bit of muesli bars, energy bars, sometimes there was half an apple for it. So we made an emergency supply so that they had the necessary calories. Uh, we had medical care, as I said, a doctor on board, who had office hours once a day.

I: Was he busy?

J: Yes, he was busy. He also sat here, distributed the appropriate waiting tags … and then took care of the people afterwards.

I: There’s a little infirmary, that’s what he did there, right? In this little room?

J: Exactly, we have such a small hospital here, where … equipped with the most important medicines. Correspondingly for wound care and the expected things, so scabies medication, for example, against cough, against cold, (…) painkillers.

I: Were there any problems with seasickness?

J: Yes.

I: Were there, among the guests?

J: Well, one of them was really seasick all the time, but he didn’t really talk about it, he just kept it to himself.

I: And … where did they sleep?

J: Well, in the end we slept on deck. (Exhales) And at night we turned off the radar and satellite antenna so that we could sleep up here on the superstructure and on the forepeak, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible in terms of radiation. Then we had a mast with a viewing platform on the forepeak, and the people slept on it, strapped in so that they wouldn’t fall off. We padded our gangway with life jackets so that you could lie on it, i.e. every available square meter. One of us always slept in our little dinghy.

I: So, one after the other? Can you put it that way?

J: Yes, everyone must have had a fixed place somehow, the whole time, it must have been so well established, they also had a bit of a hierarchy among themselves.

I: But in the open air?

J: Under the open sky, the whole time. So we stretched out a canvas as a sunshade … there was no other way. Especially at night, you could really only walk across the deck as a balerina, so to speak. Because one step, and then somehow on tiptoe, and then one step to the side, where the next place is, where you can put your foot…

I: To get a way through…

J: To be able to move through it at all and to be able to go to the toilet at night, … to the front.

I: How was the sanitary situation solved?

J: (exhales) Yes, a disaster in and of itself. Well, we had an outside toilet, a metal tub with a hole and a drain pipe, a garden tube for rinsing, and we put a canvas cover there as a screen. Two people even slept there, although that must have stunk like a pig, and there all the time … with a hundred people, there is often a leak. Those were even the preferred places, as one had noticed, because there was just a bit more space.

I: Was there something like a fixed daily routine? Was there any organization?

J: Actually, only the fixed meals, and even those were a bit dependent on how we got organized.

I: And for you as a team, was there such a shift schedule, or was there so…? ?

J: Exactly, we had a shift plan, a fixed guard plan, so at night four hours each, during the day three, that the individual shifts also changed among themselves, that not everyone always has to work from midnight to four, or so, so once the guard and then the next from 8 pm to midnight. […]

J: Yes, it was especially exhausting. Temperatures always 30 degrees, no wind, deck full, a bit grumpy, to say the least. When you have a hundred people sitting there who haven’t showered in weeks or months, it’s quite noticeable. […] And apart from that, I was on watch from morning till night. Hardly slept…, so if I was lucky it was sometimes six hours, sometimes less, whereby especially Caro and Georg actually didn’t get much more than two hours per night. They mainly took care of the guests. I almost had the nicest job here on board, I have to say.

I: Yes. And then the situation here on board, how did you perceive it, what went through your mind, what did you feel? What can you, can you remember about it?

J: Puhhh … so I was glad that we had the people on board. That was such a really ‘good thing’ what we did there, if we hadn’t taken them on board, they would have been drowned. That was also clear to me the whole time. Accordingly, I was also more than willing to accept the corresponding inconveniences, I’ll call it now. It was probably one of the hardest, but certainly also the best thing I have ever done.

I: Ever in your life, you mean?

J: Yes. Like I said, somewhere more than a job. (grins)

IV. In the port: routine work and daydreams of de-criminalisation.

I: Yes. .. How would you say the mission would have gone if the work hadn’t been criminalized?

J: We would have offloaded the people here, refitted the ship and set off again.

I: How long would that have taken?

J: Phew, three, four days maybe.

I: So maybe two or three rescues instead of one, can you say that?

J: Yes, I’d say, basically, a shuttle service would have been optimal. Collecting people, into the harbor, unloading people, taking on provisions and getting everything ready again, and setting off again. […]

I: Hmm. So, let’s get to the time here, in [port city in Sicily]. What’s your job here on the ship in the port?

J: To take care of the ship. One is to make sure there’s no “shopping” here. There are still certain valuables, the satellite system cost 40,000, I think.

I: So that nothing is stolen.

J: That nothing gets stolen, keeping the ship running, small repairs. And we are obligated on the part of the port to ensure that the ship is manned appropriately, that it can be moved if necessary, and that there is always someone on board with the appropriate competence, I would say, to simply be addressed.

I: That is, to be present. What do you have to do on the boat, specifically?

J: Yes, what do I have to do concretely. Well, running the boat, making sure that there is always electricity, keeping the generator open, turning it on and off… the thing that has to be done regularly, pumping out the (…),the passage of the shaft through the hull, there is always a bit of water coming in, that has to be pumped out regularly. And such small routine work. Checking the lines to make sure that nothing breaks and, if in doubt, tightening them again. […]

I: Hmh. Do you also have time on the ship, or are you busy all the time?

J: Actually I have more than enough time.

I: More than enough.

J: Yes, way too much. […]

I: And, um, killing time is what you call it. And how do you feel about that?

J: Quite boring, by now. […]

I: Um, would you say this is meaningful work that you’re doing here?

J: Phew, well, I’m glad that I have a job on a ship again, in that respect yes, but it would make sense if we could sail again now and get back to work.