When Helping Becomes a Crime: Why the Case of Tommy Olsen Matters

How I remember Tommy Olsen from Lesvos, on his phone/computer - documenting crime and helping life seekers.

A recent report by NRK highlights a troubling development in the relationship between humanitarian action and border enforcement. Norwegian volunteer Tommy Olsen has been arrested following a European arrest warrant issued by Greece in connection with his work around the Aegean. Aegean Boat Report (ABR) says the accusations include human trafficking, facilitating human trafficking, and participation in a criminal organisation. ABR states that Olsen’s work has consisted of documenting maritime arrivals, distress situations, alleged human rights violations, and alerting authorities to people already at sea or on shore. ABR describes itself as an independent monitoring organisation documenting human rights violations in the Aegean Sea, including maritime arrivals and pushbacks.

For many people working in humanitarian response, this case raises a familiar and deeply concerning question: what happens when helping people in distress becomes criminalised? 

From Volunteer to Humanitarian Actor

Tommy Olsen is part of a broader wave of individuals who stepped forward during the arrival of life seekers to Greece in the mid-2010s. Like many others, he began as a spontaneous volunteer responding to a visible humanitarian need: people arriving exhausted, injured, and vulnerable after crossing the Aegean.

Over time, he helped organise aid efforts and established his own NGO to continue providing assistance. This trajectory, from spontaneous volunteer to organised humanitarian actor, is common in crisis settings. When formal systems are stretched, delayed, or constrained by mandate, ordinary people step in. They do reception work, gather information, transport people, distribute aid, document what is happening, and build small practical systems that make larger operations possible. Many humanitarian initiatives begin in exactly this way.

The Criminalisation of Humanitarian Action

The case now unfolding around Tommy Olsen sits within a broader pattern that has become more visible across Europe in recent years: the criminalisation of humanitarian action. In border spaces, volunteers and NGO workers can come under legal pressure for offering assistance, documenting abuses, or facilitating access to the authorities and asylum procedures. Front Line Defenders says the judicial harassment of Olsen began in 2021, that the earlier case was dismissed for lack of evidence, and that a prosecutor in Kos later reopened the case and issued a national arrest warrant in May 2024 using the same accusations.

This matters because it reshapes the environment in which humanitarian action takes place. It produces uncertainty. It changes how people assess risk. It affects who is willing to step forward, who is willing to document, and who is willing to stay. In practice, this means that the people who often arrive early, work close to the situation, and fill gaps in the response carry a heavier burden.

Why This Matters

My own work has focused on spontaneous volunteers for precisely this reason. In crisis after crisis, they are treated as peripheral in both scholarship and operational planning, while in practice they are often central to what actually happens on the ground. They generate local knowledge. They build relationships. They create practical tools and routines. They move quickly because they are already there. They are part of the humanitarian landscape whether institutions account for them or not.

The case of Tommy Olsen brings this into sharp focus. It shows how people who begin at the edges of the system can become indispensable to the response and, at the same time, especially exposed. Their work shapes outcomes. Their status remains uncertain. Their contribution is real. Their protection is weak.

Why It Matters Even More Now

This becomes even more important in a period of reduced humanitarian funding. As budgets shrink, programmes close, and formal capacity contracts, more of the early and flexible response will continue to fall on local actors, grassroots initiatives, and spontaneous volunteers. The gaps do not disappear. They move. They move onto neighbours, civic networks, small organisations, and the people who show up first. In that landscape, protecting humanitarians like Tommy Olsen is not only about one individual case. It is about protecting a form of humanitarian action that is likely to become even more important in the years ahead.

Protecting Humanitarian Space

Protecting humanitarian space therefore means protecting the people who act within it, including those who do not fit neatly inside large institutional structures. Cases like Olsen’s point to a wider policy need: stronger recognition of those grassroots and unaffiliated actors whose work sits close to humanitarian organisations, shapes the operational environment, and carries real exposure.

The case of Tommy Olsen is not just about one person. It is about the political and legal climate in which humanitarian action now takes place. It asks whether Europe can sustain a space where documenting abuse, alerting authorities, and helping people in distress are recognised as part of humanitarian practice. It asks whether those who step forward in moments of crisis will be given protection equal to the risks they carry.

Because in moments of crisis, societies rely not only on institutions, but also on individuals willing to step forward when help is needed most.