Click to expand Image Protesters, lawyers, and aid workers outside a court in Mytilene, on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, Greece, January 13, 2023. © 2023 Panagiotis Balaskas/AP Photo After a seven-year legal ordeal, humanitarian workers wept with relief today when a court on the Greek island of Lesbos acquitted all 24 defendants who had been baselessly charged with felonies for saving lives at sea. The courtroom erupted in cheers, shouts, and tears as the verdict was read. “Saving lives is not a crime,” said Sara Mardini, one of the acquitted. In August 2018, police on Lesbos arrested Sara Mardini and Séan Binder, volunteers with a small search and rescue group, who spent more than 100 days in pretrial detention. Two Greek nationals were also detained. Prosecutors ultimately charged 24 people associated with the group, Emergency Response Center International, in a case that distorted lifesaving support for migrants and asylum seekers into felonies carrying 20 years in prison.Greek law on migration-related crimes exempts people helping asylum seekers from any penalty. Yet the prosecution charged that the search and rescue group was facilitating illegal migration and was a criminal smuggling organization. It also charged that fundraising for the group was money laundering. The prosecution also asserted that several defendants participated in smuggling on dates when they were not in Greece.The full acquittal of all defendants in “the largest case of criminalization of solidarity in Europe,” as the European Parliament called it, is significant yet likely insufficient. The prosecution chose to pursue the felony charges after another court had dismissed bogus misdemeanor charges in the same case. Greek courts had already thrown out similar cases.These prosecutions have had a significant chilling effect. Search and rescue groups have closed their operations in the Aegean Sea. Scores of people have drowned, including a 7-year-old girl whose body was recovered on January 8.The Greek government should prioritize saving lives. It could apologize to the defendants and make clear that it will no longer pursue prosecutions that criminalize solidarity. It should also throw out a proposed migration bill that would impose restrictive registration requirements and harsh penalties on nongovernmental groups and their members. It should end its abusive crackdown against human rights defenders. Most importantly, the government should immediately halt abusive pushbacks at its borders, and ensure that no one is illegally returned to danger.