Tag: North Africa

North Africa

Environmental protester shuts Libyan oil-field

The company operating Libya's biggest oilfield, Sharara, announced that it had been shut down after a citizen closed the pipeline that pumps the field's oil. The field is run by a joint venture between Libya's National Oil Corporation and several multinationals. The individual claimed the pipeline caused environmental damage to his lands, and had also closed the pipeline last year to press his demands for a clean-up. With this latest closure, Libya's oil output dropped to a six-month low of 750,000 barrels per day. National Oil Corporation chairman Mustafa Sanallah described those who shut down oil-fields as "terrorists." (Photo: Libya Observer)

North Africa

Displaced Libyans stranded in the desert

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons is calling on the government of Libya to protect hundreds of former residents of the town of Tawergha who are currently stranded in the desert. According to the UN, approximately 40,000 Tawarghans were forcefully evacuated in 2011 due to their perceived support for the country's former dictator Moammar Qaddafi, and their return has since been blocked by armed militia groups acting with the consent of the Libyan government. Although the Tawarghans are Libyan nationals, they appear to be suspected of supporting Qaddafi simply because many are of Black African ethnicity. As his army collapsed in 2011, Qaddafi brought in many Black African mercenaries in a last-ditch bid to hold onto power. (Photo: Mustafa Fetouri via The National, UAE)

North Africa

War crime seen in Benghazi mosque attack

Human Rights Watch condemned the deadly mosque attack in eastern Benghazi that left 34 people dead and 90 wounded, the majority of whom were civilians including three young children. The twin car blasts, within 30 minutes of each other, were timed to coincide with evening prayers. The second blast was intended to target first responders. No group has yet taken credit for the attack. "Planting bombs outside a civilian mosque, in particular when the timing is likely to inflict maximum casualties among civilians, is a war crime," the HRW statement said. "Civilians in Benghazi are unacceptably bearing the brunt of this conflict." (Map: CIA)

North Africa

Algeria, Libya mark Berber new year —at last

In a victory for Berber activists, Algeria officially celebrated Yennayer, the new year holiday of the Amazigh people, for the first time. The move is part of a general effort by Algeria's government to permit greater expression of Amazigh (Berber) culture in order to head off a separatist movement. Neighboring Libya also saw its first official Yennayer celebrations, although not on a national scale. The locally ruling Amazigh Supreme Council declared the holiday within the Berber self-governing zone in the country's western mountains. But elsewhere in the country there are signs of backsliding toward the intolerant stance of the Qaddafi dictatorship, when any expression of Amazigh language or culture had been strictly banned. A Berber activist in Benghazi, Rabee al-Jayash, was detained by forces of the city's reigning warlord, Khalifa Haftar, for public speaking and writing in the Amazigh tongue. (Photo: Amazigh World News)

North Africa
Tunisian Jews

Tunisian Jews scapegoated in anti-austerity revolt?

A Jewish school on the Tunisian island of Djerba, home to one of North Africa's ancient Jewish communities, was attacked as anti-government protests raged around the country. Days earlier, synagogues in the Iranian city of Shiraz were similarly vandalized amid nationwide protests over austerity measures. Are indigenous Jews of the Middle East and North Africa being scapegoated amid the renewed protests over economic agony? (Photo: Rabbis at Djerba synagogue, 1940 via Beit Hatfutsot)

North Africa

Anti-austerity protests rock Tunisia

At least one is reported dead as angry protests have spread across Tunisia in response to an austerity package imposed by the government under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. Under the new budget, which took effect Jan. 1, fuel prices are hiked, and new taxes imposed on housing, cars, phone calls, Internet services, and several other items. Hamma Hammami, leader of the opposition Popular Front, pledged to keep up the pressure, telling reporters: "We will stay on the street and we will increase the pace of the protests until the unjust financial law is dropped." (Photo: North Africa Post)

North Africa

Morocco: mass protest against ‘mines of death’

Thousands have repeatedly filled the streets of Jerada, in northeastern Morocco, as a mounting protest movement demanding jobs and social development for the marginalized region was further fueled by a mining disaster that left two young brothers dead. Mining was for decades Jerada's economic lifeline, employing more than 9,000. Since operations closed in the late 1990, locals have been struggling to survive—often by illegally taking coal from the abandoned pit, and selling it on the black market. Protesters accuse officials of turning the blind eye to the pirate mining despite the growing number of deaths in the improvised operations. They are demanding economic alternatives for the region, and government intervention to close "the mines of death." (Photo: @Riffijnsleed)

North Africa
Libya

Libya: Europe ‘complicit’ in horrific abuses

European governments are knowingly "complicit" in the torture, abuse and exploitation of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants detained by the Libyan immigration authorities or criminal gangs in appalling conditions, Amnesty International charges in a new report.  Dozens of migrants and refugees told Amnesty about collusion between detention center guards, the Libyan Coast Guard and smugglers. European countries and especially Italy have been aiding Libyan authorities in migrant interception, as well as striking deal with local militias.

North Africa

Libya slave trade becomes political football

Propagandists of the isolationist right and anti-war “left” alike are exploiting the chilling emergence of a slave trade in abducted Black African migrants in Libya’s remote desert south as evidence that the NATO intervention of 2011 only led to nightmares. The popular uprising that ousted Qaddafi is invisible to them—as is the dictator’s own culpability in the social collapse that followed his rule.

North Africa

Benghazi suspect convicted on terror charge

A jury in Washington DC acquitted the accused ringleader of the 2012 Benghazi attacks of murder but convicted him on terrorism charges. After five days of deliberations, the jury found Ahmed Abu Khatallah guilty on four counts of related to the assault on a US mission and CIA compound in the Libyan city. US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two CIA men were killed in the attack. Abu Khatallah may face life imprisonment. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

North Africa

UN calls for joint tribunal over Libyan war crimes

The head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Ghassan Salamé, suggested to the United Nations Security Council that a joint tribunal should be considered to try individuals suspected of war crimes in Libya. Salamé warned that Libya is in a state of lawlessness, with crimes being committed each day. Salamé stated, "If Libyans alone cannot combat impunity for war crimes, it is time for the international community to consider mechanisms that can help them do so."

North Africa

Mauritania: press crackdown amid political crisis

Authorities in Mauritania ordered the country's five privately owned news stations off the air. The move is the latest sign of a crackdown on the independent press following a controversial referendum called by President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz in August. The opposition-boycotted vote abolished Mauritania's Senate after it blocked an expansion of presidential powers.