Seán Binder (born 1996) is a German-born human rights activist and certified rescue diver who has spent most of his life in Ireland. The son of a refugee father from Vietnam and a German mother, he grew up in Ireland and later studied at universities in Dublin and London. From 2017 to 2018, he volunteered with a humanitarian non-governmental organization on Lesbos island, Greece, assisting refugees arriving in small boats from the nearby Turkish coast.
Along with Syrian refugee and human rights activist Sarah Mardini, he was arrested in 2018 and accused by Greek authorities of espionage, aiding illegal immigration and belonging to a criminal organization. These charges have been refuted by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, denouncing the accusations against Mardini and other humanitarian workers as criminalization of humanitarian acts.
Early life and education
Binder was born in Germany and moved with his German mother to Castlegregory, a small village on the Western coast of County Kerry, Ireland, at age five. He graduated in political science, economics, sociology and philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin, and also obtained a Master's degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics. Having focussed on conflict management during his studies, he decided to work as a volunteer with a Greek to get practical experience before finding a job. Binder is the son of a German mother and a Vietnamese father, who was a refugee from Vietnam when he met his future wife. This family history has been quoted as one reason for Binder's understanding and empathy with refugees.
Activism for refugees and legal accusations
In 2017, Bender travelled to Lesbos, a Greek island about 11 km off the Turkish coastline, to volunteer as a lifeguard with Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI), a registered Greek humanitarian NGO for refugees that cooperated with Frontex, the EU’s border management agency, and Greek border authorities. ERCI provided humanitarian aid and organized search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea between 2016 and 2018. Further, ERCI had been operating a medical centre in Moria refugee camp, described by Human Rights Watch and other organizations as an "open air prison".
During the 2015 European migrant crisis, Lesbos had become a key entry point for refugees coming from Turkey into the European Union, with approximately 5,000 migrants and refugees, mostly fleeing the civil war in Syria, landing on the island’s beaches per day.
At ERCI, Binder met fellow volunteer Sarah Mardini, a Syrian refugee who had fled from her home country in 2015 via Turkey on a dinghy and found refuge first at Lesbos and later political asylum in Germany. Both of them were assisting newly arrived refugees and used their skills as trained swimmers as part of ERCI until 2018. In February 2018 Binder and another member of ERCI were busy on a routine shift, when police arrived and arrested the two volunteers. Released without charge, Binder continued his former activities.
On 21 August 2018, Sarah Mardini was arrested on Lesbos airport, when she intended to return to Germany. The same day, Binder went to the police station to meet with Mardini and was arrested himself. A third member of the NGO, Nassos Karakitsos was arrested shortly afterwards. Binder and Mardini were handcuffed and taken to a courthouse on Lesbos Island.
According to a report in The Guardian, they and two other NGO members were subsequently detained in pre-trial detention in Athens’ high-security Korydallos prison for 106 days. After more than three months in prison, Binder and Mardini were released on 5,000 Euro bail and could leave Greece. Mardini, Binder and further Greek activists for refugees were accused of being members of a criminal organization, human trafficking, money laundering and fraud by Greek authorities. About his time in prison, Binder later said:
Court proceedings
The defendants' lawyers said the Greek authorities failed to produce concrete evidence in support of the accusations. If ultimately convicted, the accused could be sentenced to 25 years in prison. Apart from the 24 former members of ERCI, a number of other humanitarian workers have been facing prosecution in Greece, similar to what happened in Italy, where providing aid to migrants has also been criminalised.