The Criminalization of Border Solidarity and the Law as a Double-Edged Weapon

Criminalization of solidarity towards migrants at the external and internal borders of Europe is in full swing. It roots into the wider process of criminalisation of racialised foreigners and their mobility towards and within Europe, as well as into the increasing judicialization of direct activism and grassroots social movements on the ground of anti-terrorism. Law and society scholarship has grasped the complex relationship between legal institutions or tools and social movements, and how these latter can use Law as an offensive or defensive weapon to protect themselves and enhance their cause. Activists can also turn the weapon of Law against the State, when using repressive measures and trials as mediatic and political stages to launch general statements and denounce the State's inconsistency and law violations. Aiming at contributing to the understanding of the room and conditions to transform judicialization into a political weapon, the article investigates a peculiar case of criminalization of solidarity, namely the territorial bans issued by Italian police against "No Border" activists on the French-Italian border of Ventimiglia since 2015. It points out that, in spite of the annulment of the bans obtained by the defendants and their lawyers in court, the peculiar features of the repressive tool, of the social movement itself and of the context in which they occurred, strongly limited the possibility of a political reversal of judicialization. Crossing a legal opportunities framework with a legal consciousness perspective, the article also shows the plurality of activists' attitudes towards law and the effects of criminalization on activists' life paths.

欧洲内外边界针对移民的团结行为刑事定罪正全面展开。其根源既在于种族化外国人及其向欧洲迁移和在欧流动的更广泛刑事定罪进程，也在于反恐背景下直接行动主义与基层社会运动日益加剧的司法化趋势。法律与社会研究（Law and society scholarship）已把握到法律机构或工具与社会运动之间的复杂关系，以及后者如何将法律作为攻防武器，以保护自身并推进其事业。当活动人士将国家的镇压措施与审判作为媒体和政治舞台，发表公开声明并谴责国家的不一致性与违法行为时，他们亦可将法律这一武器转向国家。本文旨在助力理解将司法化转化为政治武器的空间与条件，聚焦于2015年以来意大利警方在法意边境文蒂米利亚（Ventimiglia）对‘无国界’（No Border）活动人士发布地域禁令这一特殊案例。研究指出，尽管被告及其律师在法庭上成功撤销了禁令，但镇压工具的独特特征、社会运动本身的属性及事件发生的背景，极大限制了司法化实现政治逆转的可能性。通过结合法律机会框架（legal opportunities framework）与法律意识视角（legal consciousness perspective），本文还揭示了活动人士对法律的多元态度，以及刑事定罪对其人生轨迹的影响。