You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (June 2019) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Carola Rackete]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Carola Rackete}} to the talk page.
Rackete participated in several research expeditions to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and is co-founder of the Antarctic Rights initiative. She also supported the Extinction Rebellion movement and took part in forest protests in Sweden, as well as the occupations of the Hambach Forest and the Dannenrod Forest in Germany. Between 2016 and 2019, she occasionally volunteered for non-governmental sea rescue organisations in the Mediterranean.[2] In June 2019, she was arrested for docking a migrant rescue vessel without authorization in the port of Lampedusa, Italy. The custodial judge considered Rackete’s actions as justified because she had a duty to save lives at sea and ruled that Rackete should not have been arrested. In 2021, the pending investigation was formally dismissed, since the state prosecutor didn‘t see reason to proceed to court.[3]
She worked as a conservation volunteer for nine months as part of a European Volunteer Service within the Bystrinsky Nature Reserve in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. Later, Carola Rackete worked for 10 weeks as safety officer for Silversea Cruises, a luxury cruise line headquartered in Monaco. She later worked as second-officer and Chief Mate on ships owned by Greenpeace and the British Antarctic Survey.[4]
As part of the field research for her master's thesis, Rackete studied the development of the wandering albatross population in South Georgia between 2017 and 2018[12] and took part in the long-term monitoring of seabirds and vegetation.[13] In spring 2020, Rackete was part of a research cruise to the Antarctic conducted by Greenpeace.[14] In 2023, she worked as a research assistant on a research expedition on fin whales in the West Antarctic conducted by the University of Hamburg.[15] Rackete successfully campaigned against the Davis airport project in Antarctica with the Bob Brown Foundation and is committed to the long-term protection of Antarctica and its wildlife.[16] She is a co-founder of the Antarctic Rights initiative and one of the main initiators of the Antarctic Declaration, which calls for Antarctica to be recognised as a legal entity.[17] In 2022, she took part in a protest by the indigenous Sámi population against deforestation in the Arctic and for the land rights of the Sámi.[18]
In her podcast ‘Just Nature?’, Rackete talks about species extinction and the importance of justice in the global conservation movement.[19]
In November 2021, Racket published the translation of her German environmental justice bestseller, The Time to Act is Now, with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.[20]
Sea-Watch 3 incident of June 2019
On 12 June,[21] the ship picked up 53 migrants in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Sea-Watch 3 rejected an offer to dock at Tripoli, which is considered unsafe by the European Union and the humanitarian organizations, and headed toward Lampedusa. According to a map they posted,[22] and also to a report by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) this was the nearest safe harbor per maritime law.[23][6] On 14 June, Italy closed its ports to migrant rescue ships.[24] Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini refused to allow the ship to dock until other European nations had agreed to take the migrants.[25] Ten of the migrants, including children, pregnant women, and those who were ill, were allowed to disembark.[6] On 28 June, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal offered to take the migrants.[25]
On 29 June, without authorization, Rackete decided to dock.[23][21] The motivation for this was that according to her the passengers were exhausted.[24] Rackete was arrested by the Italian authorities after docking.[6][26][27]
Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini accused Rackete of trying to sink an Italian patrol boat that was trying to intercept her and that her ship collided with, calling the incident an act of war and demanding the Netherlands intervene.[23][26]
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte "scrambled to address the matter" at the 2019 G20 Osaka summit.[28] Germany protested against the arrest.[28] Crowdfunding appeals in Italy and Germany had raised over €1 million as of 1 July for Sea-Watch legal defence.[28]Fortune called Rackete the "fresh new face" of the European migrant crisis.[28]
Sea-Watch 3 has a mainly German crew but sailed under Dutch flag.[29] In the Netherlands, main government party VVD stated that NGOs that deliberately without permission pick up people should be convicted for facilitating human trafficking.[30] Spokesman Jeroen van Wijngaarden said that: "They are factually not a rescue service but a ferry service."[31] Within the Dutch coalition government, they got support from the CDA, and in the Dutch parliament there basically was a majority that supported this. Nevertheless, the two other parties in the coalition government protested strongly against this statement.[32][29]
Eventually, Rackete was released from house arrest after a court ruling that she had broken no laws and acted to protect passengers' safety.[33][34][35] Rackete's lawyer filed a lawsuit against Salvini for defamation on social media, alleging that he incited his followers to threaten her.[36]
The council of the City of Paris on 12 July 2019 announced that the two captains of Sea-Watch 3, Pia Klemp and Carola Rackete, will receive the Grand Vermeil Medal, the top award of the City of Paris, for saving migrants at sea, because the two captains symbolized "solidarity for the respect of human lives".[37] Both refused the medal, defining this decision "hypocritical". Klempt wrote in a statement: "You want to award me a medal...because our crews 'work' to rescue migrants from difficult conditions on a daily basis. At the same time your police steal blankets from people you force to live on the streets while you suppress protests and criminalise people who defend the rights of migrants and asylum seekers."[38]
As of July 2019, Rackete was under investigation by Italian authorities for possible criminal activities in regards to undocumented migration. If convicted, Rackete would have faced up to 15 years in prison.[39] In January 2020, on appeal the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation ruled that Rackete should never have been arrested.
On May 19, 2021 a court in Agrigento ruled that no trial should be held, agreeing with a state prosecutor that the actions had been undertaken in an effort to save the lives of the migrants.[43]
Political engagement
In July 2023, Rackete and the federal leadership of The Left announced that the independent Carola Rackete would be one of the party's top candidate for the 2024 European elections.[44] The Left is a democratic socialist political party descended from the Marxist-Leninist Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Rackete suggested that the party should consider distancing itself from its Stalinist past but apologized for this demand after receiving intense criticism from the party.[45] She said at her presentation that she wanted to give the social movements a parliamentary voice. The climate crisis is the result of capitalist exploitation and it is the biggest crisis of justice in the world, she said.[44] As an independent candidate for the European Parliament, Rackete is committed to climate and social justice. She campaigns for affordable renewable energy for all, a just restructuring of the economy and the preservation and restoration of nature.[46][47]
Notes
^Rackete (originally derived from Raquette or Rachetta) is a very rare surname in Germany, consequently there is no universally accepted standard pronunciation. Applying normal German pronunciation rules, the name would have to be pronounced as Rackete (IPA:[ˈʁaketə]), but Carola Rackete's name is instead pronounced identical to the normal German noun Rakete (IPA:[ʁaˈkeːtə]), which is also rare as a surname.[48]
