Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Oct. 13Â called on Italy to end its migration cooperation agreement with Libya, saying the arrangement “has proven to be a framework for violence and suffering, and should be revoked, not renewed.” The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the countries, first signed in February 2017, was part of Italy’s broader strategy to tighten its national borders. Under the agreement, Italy has provided technical, logistical and financial support the Libyan Coast Guard, enabling the force to intercept tens of thousands of people at sea and return them to Libya. However, NGOs have consistently documented how intercepted refugees and asylum seekers are routinely detained in inhumane conditions, where they face torture and other degrading treatment.
In 2023, a UN Fact-Finding Mission in Libya found reasonable grounds to believe that high-ranking staff of the Libyan Coast Guard colluded with human traffickers and smugglers reportedly connected to militia groups. These officials allegedly demanded and received payments in exchange for turning detained migrants over to the militia groups, in whose hands they were subjected to forced labor and other abuses.
Human rights organizations and refugee advocacy groups have consistently called for the termination of the agreement. Civil society networks, like Refugees in Libya, have mobilized efforts to stop renewal of the MoU, which is set to occur on Nov. 2.
Judith Sunderland, associate Europe director at HRW, urged the EU and all of its member states, including Italy, to “stop financing and legitimizing violence against migrants and fundamentally reorient [their] Mediterranean policies to prioritize rescue at sea and safe and legal pathways for migration.”
The HRW statement came days before the European Commission and the EU border control agency Frontex were to host a delegation of Libyan migration officials at the Frontex headquarters in Warsaw. HRW called on EU officials to use the opportunity to demand respect for human rights and accountability for abuses.
From JURIST, Oct. 13. Used with permission.
Nicolas Sarkozy ordered to begin five-year prison sentence
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was ordered to begin serving his prison sentence in Paris, following a court decision last month sentencing him to five years in prison. The Correctional Tribunal of Paris found Sarkozy guilty of a criminal association with an organized scheme to illegally finance his 2007 presidential election campaign.
In 2012, French news website Mediapart published a leaked document by the Libyan government, signed by former head of intelligence, Moussa Koussa, addressed to Muammar Qaddafi’s chief of staff, Bashir Saleh. The document states that the Libyan government secretly supported Sarkozy’s 2007 financial campaign with 50 million euros. At the time, Sarkozy sued Mediapart for forgery and use of forgery, which triggered an expert evaluation of the document that concluded it was probable that the document was legitimate.Â
Back in 2007, France hosted an important state visit for Qaddafi, which favored Libya’s return to the international scene, despite its involvement in terrorist activities and infringement upon human rights in the country. Sarkozy’s trial also revisited the “Bulgarian nurses” case of 2007, when five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were released by Libyan authorities after allegedly infecting hundreds of children with HIV in a hospital in Libya and sentenced to death on those charges. In July 2007, First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and several EU officials brokered a deal with the Libyan authorities to release the medics. (Jurist)
Ironically, Nicolas Sarkozy was in power when France joined with the US and UK in the military intervention that removed Qaddafi from power in 2011.
Deadly shipwrecks as EU migration policy faces legal scrutiny
More than 40 people drowned when a migrant boat sank off the coast of Tunisia on Oct. 23 in one of the deadliest incidents in the Mediterranean Sea this year. The Tunisian Coast Guard rescued 30 survivors. The tragedy followed another shipwreck near the Italian island of Lampedusa on Oct. 17 in which at least 20 people are thought to have drowned. Eleven people were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard and a nearby merchant boat. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has recorded over 1,000 deaths in the central Mediterranean Sea, between North Africa and Italy, so far this year.
The EU has long sought to prevent migration across the Mediterranean by partnering with authorities in North African countries—an approach the EU continues to double down on despite concerns that it has given authoritarian governments a free pass while helping to facilitate rights abuses against migrants and asylum seekers. A team of lawyers recently filed a request with the International Criminal Court for it to investigate 122 European leaders—including French President Emmanuel Macron and former German chancellor Angela Merkel—for crimes against humanity related to EU migration policy. (TNH)