German captain of migrant rescue vessel refuses honour from Paris
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Pia Klemp, the German captain of rescue ship Iuventa, that saved hundreds of migrants’ lives in the Mediterranean has turned down Paris’s highest civilian award, accusing the city of hypocrisy over the treatment of migrants.
Paris awarded Pia Klemp and her compatriot Carola Rakete the Grand Vermeil Medal, most prestigious civilian award, in July for their repeated bravery in bringing migrants to shore despite Italian efforts to stop them.
Klemp accused the French capital of hypocrisy over the treatment of migrants and refugees.
Klemp, along with fellow German Carola Rackete, has overseen the rescues of hundreds of people from the Mediterranean.
“We do not need authorities deciding who is a ‘hero’ and who is ‘illegal’,” Klemp said in a statement on Facebook.
Addressing Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, she wrote: “You want to award me a medal … because our crews ‘work to rescue migrants from difficult conditions on a daily basis’.
“At the same time your police steal blankets from people you force to live on the streets while you suppress protests and criminalise people who defend the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.”
A Paris City Hall spokesman said officials would be in contact with Klemp.
Klemp, has been under investigation in Italy since one of her ships, the Iuventa, was impounded in Sicily in August 2017 by local authorities. She is accused of assisting illegal immigration.
Paris awarded the two women skippers the medals after Rakete’s rescue ship Sea-Watch 3 ran a blockade surrounding the small Italian island of Lampedusa to land dozens of rescued African migrants. Rakete was arrested in Lampedusa on human-trafficking charges.
Facing up to 20 years in jail if brought to trial and convicted, Klemp told German daily Basler Zeitung that she would fight the allegations all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
The honours awarded to Rackete and Klemp infuriated Italy’s populist Interior Minister Salvini, who criticised the decision.
