As 600 people drift on the Aquarius in the Mediterranean Sea, when did we decide that it was right to stop treating human beings with basic dignity?

Italians may well have a point that the rules of the EU have placed a disproportionate burden on an already listing economy, but sending innocent refugees back out to sea is no solution

The ‘Aquarius’ has been involved in numerous refugee rescue operations (Reuters)

“Everywhere, [t]he ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

Yeats wrote these words a century ago, in the wake of the First World War. He could not have anticipated the destruction wrought by Hitler, Stalin, Hiroshima, or Pol Pot. Today’s neo-fascist revival may pale in comparison to the actual carnage of the twentieth century, yet around the world an attack on innocence has begun, a contempt for the concept of human dignity. And we don’t know yet where it may end.

In a chilling echo of the turning back from New York harbour of the MS St. Louis, carrying 937 Jewish refugees, the new, far right Italian government has refused to allow the rescue ship Aquarius – carrying 629 Libyan refugees rescued at sea, including children and pregnant women – to land in Italy. Suddenly, a New Age of Aquarius may be dawning, reflected not in love and freedom but in exclusion and hostility to the Other. Showing a ray of humanity, large hearted mayors of Southern Italian ports have said the Aquarius is welcome in their towns.

Italians may well have a point that the rules of the European Union have placed a disproportionate and unsustainable burden on an already listing economy, but sending innocent refugees back out to sea is no solution.

In Gaza, unarmed protesters protesting the move of the Israeli capital to Jerusalem were met with live ammunition. 124 Palestinians were killed and more than a thousand wounded. To be sure, Gaza is a violent place run by Hamas and unguided missiles are periodically lobbed into Israeli territory. But firing into crowds of civilians is a patent violation of international law. Again, the image of innocence – meeting stone-throwers with Goliath-like force – is destroyed by machine gun fire.

It is difficult to know where to begin with Trump’s assault on innocence. The Trump administration’s assault on the archetypal bond between mothers and children is as indefensible as it is grotesque. Thousands of children have been separated and incarcerated because their parents, like tens of millions of parents before them, wanted to bring their children to the land of immigrants. Who is taking care of these children? Where are they? No one knows or seems much to care.

Attorney General Sessions, trying to show his toughness to his dismissive boss, claims the policy is necessary as a disincentive to immigration. Of course, in recent years, net immigration has gone down because the Mexican economy has done better in recent years, a result that Trump seeks to preclude. It is an unspeakable cruelty to Hispanic parents and children in search of a rationale.

To similar effect is Trump’s destruction of DACA, sending innocent children who have never known any home other than the United States, back to unfamiliar countries of their birth. Trump uses the image of violent gangs like MS-13, but is exiling ordinary American kids from their homes, one of whom was violently killed in Mexico last week. Again, families are separated as Trump lumps all immigrants into the category of inherent threats, all of whom are too violent and too threatening to live in the wonderfully peaceful United States.

In Guantanamo Bay, 30 men have spent more than 15 years in American captivity without any charges ever filed or to be filed. America can cut back on food stamps while spending over $5m per detainee. Until now, the presumption of innocence precluded detention without trial. Again, they are Muslims, presumed without trial to be violent jihadis. There are whispers of evidence obtained by torture. Trump believes torture works, against all credible evidence. But he will not subject that evidence to scrutiny by neutral courts (he is not so crazy about courts either). Now these men are “forever prisoners”, where their innocence is irrelevant and there are no ceremonies to declare their innocence and send them home.

No one ever accused Trump, or the European neo-fascists, or Netanyahu, of being innocents. They are nobody’s fools, wised-up guys, who know that beneath the secret veneer of pregnant Syrian or Mexican or Libyan women or children, or unarmed Gazan protesters lurk jihadis and gang members. Each of these leaders purports to be in the Judeo-Christian tradition, which venerates innocence, faith, trust in the unquestioning love of God of Abraham and Jesus.

To be sure, we cannot be governed by holy fools, but the drowning of innocence, the demonising of children, the shooting of unarmed civilians and the turning back of innocent migrants are a fundamental refutation of the irreducible respect for the dignity of every human being, a rock on which any decent culture must be based.

Eric Lewis is Chairman of Reprieve US, a charity that advocates against capital punishment and indefinite detention and has represented Guantanamo detainees for more than fifteen years. He is also a director of Independent Digital News and Media, which publishes The Independent. The views reflected are his own