Maeve Higgins: Migration is being punished, even as asylum is promised 

Migrants and humanitarians who help them — including Seán Binder who is on trial in Lesbos — are being criminalised while states get away with breaching international law

Migrants clamber ashore on Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on a dinghy on March 2, 2020. File picture: Michael Varaklas/AP

The criminal case held last week in Lesbos against 24 humanitarians for helping migrants sounded like a joke, but not a funny one. 

In court were volunteers with a small Greek NGO, Emergency Response Centre International, a search-and-rescue organisation that has since disbanded, including Seán Binder, a Kerry man and rescue diver.