Criminalising basic humanity

Via Crooked Timber: The European Union wants to make it a crime to save drowning refugees by classifying it as "people smuggling". Its as monstrous as it is absurd; when confronted with a drowning person or a sinking ship, you don't stop and ask for citizenship papers before helping. And its clearly illegal, a violation of the right to life affirmed by the European Convention on Human Rights (not to mention Article 98 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea). But this apparently is what the EU stands for now: letting people die rather than fulfill their basic obligation to provide humanitarian assistance.