Seven Tunisian fishermen have been held in an Agrigento jail for a week for rescuing 44 asylum seekers who were drowning.

Italian website meltingpot, which raised the alarm in a long article by Fulvio Vassallo Paleologo, of the Association of Juridical Studies on Immigration at Palermo University, said it was clear that these Tunisian fishermen are being treated very differently from the way a Maltese fishermen, who did the same, was treated.

The marine laws of any country state that one must help and show solidarity to anybody who is in danger at sea. But it seems that many governments prefer to leave women, children and men die in the sea rather than helping them.

On 28 June, the Icelandic fishing vessel Eyborg, belonging to the Maltese company Ta’ Mattew Fish Farms, was in Libyan waters when its crew saved 23 immigrants who were holding on to a tuna pen being pulled by the Eyborg.

The Eyborg sailed towards Malta but the government of Malta told its captain, Raymond Bugeja, to take the illegal immigrants to the Libyan port of Misurata. This, Dr Vassallo Paleologo said, is in defiance of international maritime law, which states that people helped at sea must be taken to the nearest safe harbour, not just the nearest harbour. It is known that at Misurata there are hundreds of imprisoned Eritrean refugees who, despite all international conventions, Libya refuses to admit to and who are periodically sent back to the country from which they have escaped.

The Libyan government had already given its consent for the vessel pulling the tuna pen to enter Misurata harbour, but Mr Bugeja still resisted pressures by the Maltese authorities that threatened to arrest and charge him with illegal immigrant trafficking. Most of the illegal immigrants were Eritreans.

In the end, the Maltese government, itself under pressure from many European States, promised the asylum seekers would be redistributed among many European states, sent a ship to take the illegal immigrants in. And Mr Bugeja was not charged.

But a different fate has taken place at Lampedusa.

On 8 August, seven Tunisian fishermen were arrested at Lampedusa and charged with having saved the lives of 44 migrants from rough seas 40 miles south of Lampedusa. The seven have been charged with having helped illegal immigrant trafficking, the same charge that was to be made against Raymond Bugeja. The seven are the two captains of two fishing boats from Monastir and their five-man crew.

The immigrants that included 11 women and two children had launched an SOS on a satellite phone.

While the Italian agency ADN Kronos claimed the two fishing vessels were the much discussed “mother ships” which are said to bring the illegal immigrants to just below the horizon of either Malta or Lampedusa and from there launch the small boats the asylum seekers come in, other Italian sources dispute this: they argue the two fishing vessels were easily identifiable as being mother ships. Besides, no trace of any small boat was found. It also seems there were some language difficulties as the Tunisian ships entered Italian waters when they had been ordered to stay out.

The end result was that the seven were arrested and kept in prison and their boats seized by the Agrigento authorities, the simple reason being that they had just helped people who were drowning.