Carole Rackete, German migrant rescue ship captain, said she is concerned about the rhetoric used by Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini over the migrant rescue crisis.
The German captain, 31, was put under house arrest as she ignored security instructions and steered her ship into Italian Lampedusa port carrying 40 illegal immigrants on June 29th.
As she was decided by a judge to get released on Saturday, Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini vowed to make legal proceedings against Rackete whom he labeled a "rich and spoilt German communist".
Speaking in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica, Rackete described the Italian minister as a "racist" and a "dangerous man."
"I'm worried by the tone Matteo Salvini uses; by the way he expresses his ideas that breach human rights. He is dangerous, but all of the radical and nationalist right [wing] is like that, from the English UKIP to the German AfD," she added.
Rackete, who could still be charged with breaching Italian immigration laws said she "would certainly do the same again" in reference to her decision to defy the ban on migrant ships docking at Italian ports.
She admitted, however, to an "error of judgment" in colliding with an Italian customs police boat while docking at Lampedusa, and blamed it on exhaustion. The police unit was trying to obstruct her maneuver.
Her remarks came as about 41 of shipwrecked migrants disembarked in Italy early today after their rescue boat docked on the island of Lampedusa, the second vessel in a week to defy efforts to stop them by Minister Salvini.
The people were finally allowed to step off migrant rescue charity Mediterranea's Italian-flagged Alex, which arrived at the port on Saturday in an overnight operation that saw the ship temporarily seized by authorities. The boat's captain Tommaso Stella is being investigated for allegedly aiding illegal immigration, according to the Italian news agency Agi.
Salvini last month issued a decree that would bring fines of up to 50,000 euros ($57,000) for the captain, owner and operator of a vessel "entering Italian territorial waters without authorisation".
Meanwhile, around 30 thousand protesters took to the streets in many German cities to support immigrant rescue operations in the name of humanity.
Rackete addressed the protesters who supported her. "The irresponsibility of European countries obliged me to do what I did," she said.
On his part, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wrote a letter to Salvini asking him to rethink his policy, sources close to the German government said.
"We cannot be responsible for boats with people rescued from shipwrecks on board spending weeks on the Mediterranean because they can't find a port," Seehofer wrote.
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