Athens, Greece – It was April 2022 when Homayoun Sabetara finally disclosed to his daughters his detention in a Greek prison cell.
Sabetara, an Iranian citizen, had been apprehended in August 2021 in Thessaloniki after driving a vehicle across the Turkish-Greek border.
Sabetara claims he was coerced into transporting the seven other individuals found inside the vehicle into Greece. In September 2022, he received an 18-year prison sentence for smuggling, a trial campaigners argue was unjust and which Sabetara allegedly didn’t fully comprehend.
His daughter, Mahtab Sabetara, is now actively raising awareness for his appeal trial commencing on Monday in Thessaloniki, aiming to shed light on the plight of other asylum seekers facing similar circumstances.
“I was quite shocked to experience this myself and realize that this is the fate of many people who are now in prison due to the same allegations,” Mahtab Sabetara shared with Al Jazeera from Germany, where she resides.
“I thought it would be, of course, the right thing to do for my father, so that we can raise awareness for his trial but at the same time to shed light on some other cases which are not very well-known.”
She hopes to advocate for broader political change.
“It’s not just an isolated issue. It’s a systematic problem which affects many people and which is directly related to Europe’s migration policies,” she emphasized.
“I always make this example: When the conflict in Ukraine started and people in Germany, for example, went to the Polish borders and took some people in their cars, these people were never called smugglers. The point was that these people were doing a moral thing.”
She added that in her perspective, “the individuals who are being labeled as smugglers are actually people on the move themselves, and in many cases, the fact is that they didn’t have any other choice.”
Mahtab Sabetara revealed that since her father’s arrest, he has struggled to comprehend fully what is happening to him and why he is in prison.
“He fled Iran at a moment where he did not have any other alternatives. He never thought that this would be the outcome.”
The European Commission has prioritized combating smuggling, proposing legislation in 2023 aimed at targeting smugglers.
“We are stepping up the fight against migrant smuggling and protecting the people from falling into the hands of criminals,” European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson declared in November. “We are going after the smugglers, not the smuggled.”
Nevertheless, rights campaigners have long asserted that innocent individuals inevitably get ensnared in this crackdown, pointing to cases across Europe where refugees and migrants have faced significant prison time for being found at the helm of a boat or a vehicle after being coerced into the position.
Dimitris Choulis from the Human Rights Legal Project, a legal aid organization, will be one of the attorneys representing Homayoun Sabetara in court.
“The primary hope is to have a fair trial, a trial where all the procedural laws will be respected, and secondly is for Homayoun to come out of prison and be reunited with his family,” he told Al Jazeera.
Choulis, based on the Greek island of Samos, one of the main sea arrival points for refugees and migrants in Greece, noted several cases of asylum seekers falsely accused of smuggling.
“The unique thing in this case is that Homayoun’s two family members have found the tools and the strength to fight against injustice,” he said.
“It’s crucial to understand that all these people have names and have families – to understand that they are not just statistics.”
A 2023 report by Borderline Europe, an NGO, highlighted that individuals convicted of smuggling constitute the second-largest group in Greek prisons, of whom about 90 percent are foreign nationals.
It noted that being the only person in a group who spoke English is sometimes the reason individuals found themselves charged.
Erik Marquardt, a member of the European Parliament for the Greens/European Free Alliance who commissioned the report, alleged in a statement sent to Al Jazeera that the Greek government is “knowingly misusing laws” designed to combat trafficking to “persecute and punish those who flee to its shores in search of safety”.
“This dangerous strategy of deterrence is not about punishing criminals, it’s about criminalizing migration. The Greek government puts people in prisons whose only crime is to seek asylum in Europe and in doing so, it is attacking its own rule of law and endangering its democracy,” he said.
Greek ministers have consistently defended a “strict but fair” migration policy and emphasized the importance of tackling people smuggling and smuggling networks to protect Greece’s borders.
At the time of publishing, Greek authorities had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, Mahtab Sabetara continues to advocate for her father’s acquittal, reminiscing about a man full of humor with whom she used to play chess.
“He’s a very positive person,” she remarked. “Or he used to be a very positive person.”
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