“The judges must be removed,” Elon Musk wrote a few days ago in X, criticizing the Italian justice system that strongly opposes the transfer of immigrants to the Italian immigration centers in Albania. Musk was slapped by the response of Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who, without mentioning the American tycoon, said that Italy’s sovereignty should be respected, especially by those who are said to be taking a major role in the government of a friend and allied country. A little later, Elon Musk called X the Mediterranean migrant rescue organization Sea-Watch “criminal”. The reason is the intention of the German organization to take legal action against the Italian authorities for the, as it claims, the negligent death of 21 migrants in a shipwreck on September 2.

The issue was also mentioned by Georgia Linardi, the representative of Sea-Watch speaking to APTN: “Elon Musk’s attack first against Italian justice and then against Sea-Watch finds fertile ground, which has been prepared by the Italian government, which it should protect the judicial system and civil society from such attacks. Instead, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been personally attacking both the Italian judicial system and the work of the rescue organization Sea-Watch in recent weeks.”

Immigration policy with deadly consequences

The representative of the rescue organization believes that the more public opinion is distracted from the systematic violation of human rights at sea, the greater the “deadly effects” in the Mediterranean. Georgia Linardi considers Elon Musk’s posts to be related to the fact that Sea-Watch is a “disturbing witness to the effects of the current immigration policy”:

“We tried to draw public attention to what constitutes real crimes by focusing on the failure to rescue, which we denounced the day we were attacked by Elon Musk, which was intended to distract from critical issues. As an organization we remain committed to our goals, documenting the systematic violation of human rights at sea and denouncing the deadly effects of Italian and European migration policies in the Mediterranean.”

APTN, afp, dpa