Geneva – ESI at the Rafto Laureates Forum

Interview with ESI's Gerald Knaus and ZDF presenter Andreas Wunn. Screenshot: ZDF

ESI's Gerald Knaus was invited to the Rafto Laureates Forum to speak about how to do precise and effective advocacy work in a small organisation. The forum was held at the Chateau de Bossey close to Geneva and gathered the Rafto Prize Laureates to share experiences on shrinking political space, the increasing use of threats and hate speech against human rights defenders and the growing trend of governments using legal and administrative procedures to target civil society.

The same day, Gerald Knaus also met with Abdul Aziz Muhamat, a former Manus island detainee, to discuss his experiences (Manus is a Papua New Guinea island in the Pacific to where Australia deports boat refugees).

At noon, he was invited by the German public broadcaster ZDF for an interview that was broadcast live during the TV Show "ZDF Mittagsmagazin. Regarding the migration crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea, Gerald argued that

"we need an initiative from Germany, that is similar to the sea rescue missions in the South China Sea after the end of the Vietnam war, where boats under German flags rescued the Vietnamese boatpeople who were then brought to Germany. Sea-Watch is a German organisation and the German states could take in the rescued people after they have been rescued and brought to Malta."

• ZDF, Mittagsmagazin, "Für Deutschland ein Desaster" - TV interview with Gerald Knaus - ("A disaster for Germany") (28 June 2019)
• ESI proposals for the refugee crises in the Central Mediterranean and the Aegean: www.esiweb.org/refugees
• ESI: Caviar Diplomacy, prosecutors, corruption and the Council of Europe

Gerald Knaus with activist Abdul Aziz Muhamat. Photo: ESI