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She has been a member of Angela Merkel‘s Council of Ministers since the beginning of the Chancellor’s Office in Germany in 2005. She has been Minister of Defense since December 2013 and was Merkel’s right-hand woman in the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU) since November 2010. Before Defense, she led the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, and previously the Ministry of Family during one term each.

On her new Twitter account, Von der Leyen defines herself as “mother of seven [children], born in Brussels and European at heart”. In Europe there are almost 26 million Muslim citizens, according to a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center. This has been the political evolution of Von der Leyen with respect to this part of society:

An agreement for ​​value education only among Christians

At the beginning of her political career at federal level in Germany, the then minister for Family, promoted an “agreement for [value] education” ​​only with representatives of the Catholic and Protestant faith. It was in 2006 and both the Social Democrats and the Central Council of Muslims in the country criticized the initiative, considering it biased.

“The same way we learn our mother tongue, we have to first clarify our own position so that later we can open ourselves to other religions,” Von der Leyen justified. But she did not convince even all the members of her party. “If it’s about education, it’s also about an intercultural dimension,” the president of the Turkish-German forum of the CDU and Muslim politician Bülent Arslan, told Spiegel Online.

The policy was also criticized for limiting the educational alliance to religious organizations, without taking into account those who do not profess any faith nor did she invite teachers and educators to take part in the initiative.

Rabbis and imams in the army

As Minister of Defense, in November 2015 she was open to include imams as spiritual advisors in the Army for those soldiers who profess Islam, the Die Welt newspaper reported.

Five years later, this issue has been put on the table again, with the arrival of rabbis as spiritual advisers in a pilot project, as reported by the German media last April. Defense has committed to also incorporate imams, although it has not given a date to specify this measure and has explained that there is not a single Muslim body with which to make the necessary agreement.

Ursula von der Leyen argued that the measure – very much discussed – was an “important signal”. “Precisely in times in which anti-Semitism, religious polarization and narrow-mindedness in many places are booming,” the candidate to chair the European Commission found it important to also provide Muslim and Jewish soldiers spiritual advice, just as Catholics and Protestants already did, Deutsche Welle informed. She acknowledged that “they have expressed this desire for a long time and it is a justified wish”.

There are approximately 3,000 Muslim troops in the German Army and some 300 Jews, in addition to some 53,000 Protestant soldiers and 41,000 Catholics, according to official estimates.

Muslim soldiers, “indispensable” for missions abroad

In Germany there are between 4.4 and 4.7 million Muslims, according to official figures. In an interview in 2016, Von der Leyen tried to value German Muslim soldiers when asked about a “multicultural” army. “We have soldiers [of] Turkish, African or Arab [origin] and many German-Russians. In missions abroad we currently have some 170 Muslim soldiers. They are indispensable. With their knowledge of the language and culture, they provide us with access to the corresponding population, “she said to the Berliner Morgenpost.

Although this way she linked Islam to migration, and putting Muslims as foreigners is one of the discriminatory elements denounced by the European experts on islamophobia -like the Runnymede Trust-, it is necessary to indicate that the current leader of her party and its Spokesman in the Bundestag have stressed that Muslims are part of Germany just like any other person of another faith. Von der Leyen has spoken publicly in favor of “diversity” in society.

The much-talked-about visit to Saudi Arabia, without hijab

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La entrada Ursula von der Leyen and her view on Muslims in Europe se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

Before taking this position, Chiamparino had been working on European policies on how to combat racism and xenophobia, for the last three years particularly on the area of tackling hate speech online. For him it is key that minority groups are heard and taken into account in the European Commission, baring in mind that there are around 26 million Muslims in Europe, many of them being European Muslims.

Chiamparino organized a workshop held recently in Madrid together with the Spanish government where around 120 actors from civil society and public officials came together to discuss about synergies and good practices on tackling Islamophobia in the European Union. His team helped to bring together a diversity of actors from all over the EU, ranging from human rights associations, Muslim associations or academe to government officials or police officers tackling hate crime. He spoke to Salam Plan for this interview just after the one and half-day workshop, in which this website against hate was also invited to take part.

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What does your position as head of the European Commission’s unit to tackle Islamophobia mean?

The key role of the coordinator to combat anti-Muslim hatred is to ensure that the different Commission services are involved from different angles which might be relevant to fight against intolerance, discrimination and hatred against Muslims. That could be from the side of hate crime, potential responses, on the side of education with the tools that we have, types of funding, for example, or other areas which might be relevant. So, ensuring a mainstream; also the need to protect the rights and to tackle forms of racism and intolerance.

The other main role that I have is to be a sort of contact, for both society organizations from the ground, to transmit messages from things that are happening on the ground to the political sphere of the European Commission, as well as for national authorities and local authorities, when it comes to how to bring together the relevant actors to tackle intolerance, discrimination and hatred against Muslims.

So, in short, it is a facilitator role in a way, trying to bring together all the different actors into this fight.

“There is a general societal challenge, in terms of dominant narratives and how we can promote alternative, positive narratives to those who spread intolerance, hatred, rejection”

More than 100 actors gathered in Madrid to speak about strategies and the needs and challenges to fight Islamophobia. What do you take with you from this meeting?

You might say numbers are not important, but I think having a full room of people in a workshop, in a meeting that was held in a Government building and hosted by public authorities and the fact that these people were coming from the large majority of the Member States, and they were coming from both grass roots organizations working on the ground and from national or local authorities… they were in the same room, they were in the same groups discussing about how to cooperate or to find ways to work together. That was in itself a key achievement of this meeting: having people in the same room talking about concrete forms of cooperation.

The outcomes are homework for everyone, including the Commission of course, and other public authorities to convene platforms open to civil society actors on how to find responses in the different areas. For example, training the police to recognize islamophobic hate crime or how to work together with the equality bodies and to ensure a mechanism of cooperation between civil society and political bodies and prosecution of cases.

During this workshop, Muslims’ associations and also other civil society associations showed on Islamophobia being also in the political discourse. What can the European Commission do in that respect, especially given the new spectrum in the European Parliament?

I think there is, on the one side, a general societal challenge, in terms of dominant narratives and how we can promote alternative, positive narratives to those who spread intolerance, hatred, rejection, etcetera.

What we can do is to continue to work in an area where we have been working a lot on, for example in the online sphere, so how to promote positive narratives of tolerance online.

In addition, the challenge is to transmit the message that this is not a fight that we need to take for one group: for Muslims, for Jews or Roma people or LGBT people, but we need to do it for a model of society that we want. In that sense, I think there might be several allies among the political community as well about a common message: that it is about a model of society based on non-discrimination, tolerance -that is at stake and we need to promote and protect in the future.

“We are all part of the same, plural society. I am personally non- Muslim, but I value a society where Muslims, or other groups, are living next to me and that the school of my children reflects such a mix”

Working specifically on Islamophobia, what do Muslims mean to you? What would you tell non-Muslim people who are afraid or spread hate?

For me it is quite simple: we are all part of the same, plural society. I am personally non- Muslim, but I value a society where Muslims, or other groups, are living next to me and that the school of my children reflects such a mix. The fact of not being part of the community makes me feel an even stronger responsibility: I devote my work to help transmitting the voices of groups that often are not heard, that often don’t have spaces in which they are represented and that don’t have access to policy making… hoping my work will soon not be needed anymore: it will mean more diversity, more tolerance.

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La entrada European Commission against Islamophobia: “This fight is not for one group: it is about the society that we want, based on non-discrimination” se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

While being Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, the socialist politician has expressed on more than one occasion his interest in tackling hatred and prejudice against Muslims, be it the 25 million Europeans who, it is estimated, follow this religion, or foreigners. There are two key statements he has made in this regard this year, which offer a hint to what his approach might be in regard to Islamophobia as the new head of European diplomacy:

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1. “Islam did not arrived in a rubber boat (…). It is part of European culture,” he said at the opening of a series of conferences entitled “Dialogue on open societies”, promoted by his Ministry in Casa Árabe, a Spanish public institution whose missions include the fight against Islamophobia.

The minister underlined that day, on January 14 of this year, that Spain is the part of Europe where Islam has been most lasting and remains “alive in language, in architecture, in Spanish demography.” In Spain, Muslims make up 4% of the population, with about 2 million Muslims and 43% of these being Spanish.

For Borrell, it is the presence of more than seven centuries of Islam in Spain that grants its country part of its character of “exceptionality” that is adduced in Europe. He stressed: “We must integrate the Islamic factor in an appropiate measure. Yes, there is an Arab [and Muslim] pillar in the European culture.”

Borrell said in that conference as well that “in the face of closed and xenophobic visions, we must bet on an open society” and regretted that in Spain “there are emerging parties that want Muslims to be considered enemies who must be expelled from the country.”

2. “We are studying – because it seems reasonable to us [the Spanish Administration]- that Islamophobia, like anti-Semitism, is considered a manifestation of hatred towards other human beings and receives the same kind of condemnation.”

This was Borrell’s response to Salam Plan in a press conference, when this website asked him about the possible specific classification of Islamophobia in the Spanish Penal Code or the separate registration of Islamophobic hate crimes in the statistics, in line with what United Nations and international experts ask for. It was during a press conference offered by the Spanish Foreign Minister after meeting with the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Madrid last March.

“Together we have to share a fight against the messages of xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism … in general against hate messages. Join our struggles against terrorism and extremism, common enemy, “he had previously declared.

The need to legally reflect Islamophobia separately is clear to both the UN and the OSCE or the editors of the European Report on Islamophobia. “It would be necessary to know in how many cases have been prosecuted hate crimes against the Muslim community [to] know the seriousness and extent of this problem,” UN special rapporteur on the rights of minorities, Fernand de Varennes, explained after visiting Spain in January.

The breakdown by ethnic and religious groups in statistics of hate crimes for him is “indispensable”. The rapporteur, did not want to give an opinion on the need or not to penalize specifically Islamophobia in the Spanish law on that date, as he recognized he needed to study the Spanish situation more in depth before drawing a conclusion on that respect.

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La entrada New head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell against Islamophobia: “Islam did not arrive in a rubber boat: it is part of the European culture” se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

Ramia Chaoui shows and speaks about all kind of things there: from make-up or how she got to know her husband to sharing the traditions of her other homeland, Morocco, or the problems Muslim people -like her- face in Spain.

She was recently invited to open a high-level meeting to counter Islamophobia, organized by the European Commission in Brussels. “We need to stop asking people like me how to integrate, because we don’t need to integrate in our own home”, she requested in front of the Justice European Commissioner, Vera Jourova, and other politicians representing European countries.

“We need to stop asking people like me how to integrate, because we don’t need to integrate in our own home”

She speaks with Salam Plan on the phone from Barcelona before going to work. For all those afraid of Muslims, Ramia points out “Islam is totally compatible with democracy, it just needs to be well understood”. For her, “being Muslim is trying to be a better person for oneself and for the others and everything that surrounds us”.

In your videos, you always greet by saying “salam zyonat”. What does that mean?

“Hi, beauties”. “Zeyn” is like beauty. I liked to open with something in Arabic, which also represents another part of my identity and my culture. I like to say hello that way, because it defines me. “Salam” means “peace” and is part of the Muslim greeting, and than all my videos are in Spanish, which is my mother tongue and the one I can better express myself in.

What made you open your own YouTube channel?

The lack of representation in mass media, searching for a place where I could express myself and talk about the issues where nobody listened to us, to have there my version of events without it being sweetened or censored.

Also, a little bit from an educational perspective. I listened to many questions around me about things I thought people knew well, stereotypes. Whenever I talked to new people who were hardly in touch with Muslims, I was very surprised to see the image they had about that part of the society.

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On Ramia Schannel you talk about all kind of things. What are the issues you like to speak more about?

At the beginning I made a lifestyle and entertainment channel, about how to combine the spiritual life with the non- Muslim Western normal life like any other girl of my age.

Now I have changed the focus to separate it a bit from the personal sphere and take it more to the activist field [against Islamophobia], but in a lighter way, not so hardcore. I have young followers and don’t want to be preachy.

I try to make the videos entertaining but at the same time with a message or moral of the story, or to explain something about Muslims, a Muslim festivity… so that people have a window to look into the life of a Western Muslim person and how our life is.

Earlier you said that one of the reasons to star your channel was tackling stereotypes about Muslims. Which ones would you highlight?

To get turned into a foreigner, that is one of the things which annoys me the most. For example, me living in Catalonia, that people speak to me in Spanish or slowly so that I can understand them… Those kind of things which people may do with good intentions, but I belong to the people who think that we’ve been here for a long time already and migration is nothing recent.

The fact that people are surprised that you have a degree, that you speak well the language, that you don’t have any accent…

And what affects me the most is the issue with the lack of equal opportunities and the discrimination, especially in the labour field for Muslim women.

“One of the things which annoys me the most is to get turned into a foreigner. Me living in Catalonia, that people speak to me in Spanish or slowly so that I can understand them”

In fact, there is a video in your channel where you explain that you are considering to take off your hijab.

It’s something you always bear in mind. Not now, but it’s true that all these years I have been wearing it, you ask yourself and weigh up: “Wow, it is really affecting me”. But well, than you remember why you put it on in the first place and what it means to you and you try to look ahead.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have moments of doubts and difficulties… and understanding that other women face the same difficulties and finally take it off due to social pressure.

What difficulties have you encountered due to the hijab?

Mainly, being able to do job interviews and getting a job. They will choose someone who doesn’t wear it if you are equally qualified, or not so equally: you may be a bit more prepared or may be speak more languages. Nevertheless, the scales seems to tip to the other side.

The issue about doing a traineeship to get your degree, I get many messages from girls. Many of them see themselves forced to take it off or not doing the traineeship. I think Education should come first. Later in the labour market, I can understand that a company may be free to choose who it hires. But if a company chooses to offer traineeships to the students, it shouldn’t make a difference: they’re not your workers, they’re people who come to learn and will leave.

Me personally, I have seen myself obliged to accept another king of jobs, because I couldn’t choose the same way my fellow students did. I thought that was the way it goes. Although it might not have convinced me, I took the job to have one.

“The issue about doing a traineeship to get your degree… I get many messages from girls who see themselves forced to take the hijab off “

You have more than 38,000 followers. What kind of profile do they have?

They’re mainly female, 80% approximately. Spaniards and from other European countries, also from Mexico. Between 18 and 30 years old.

What kind of questions or comments do they have?

More than that, I think they see me a bit like an inspiration. If you see you’re not the only one facing problems or suffering, you don’t feel so lonely.

What happens sometimes is that these things stay in the community or within the family, you don’t speak about them that much. And you think it isn’t happening to nobody else and that you are the unlucky one.

I think that sharing and speaking about it, helps to fight against it. I try to motivate. There are girls who have even asked me why they should study if they’re not gonna get a job anyway. Loosing motivation like this is worrying.

I try to change the approach of the youngest girls. Feeling ashamed of your culture, of your religion, because they’re always speaking bad about it, because you don’t see positive examples, no examples of people who overcome [the problems]… But to see someone who -achieving more or less- follows her dreams, trying to change a bit -as much as possible-, I think it is good for our young ladies.

“There are girls who have even asked me why they should study if they’re not gonna get a job anyway”

You just mentioned something key, I think: that some people feel ashamed due to what is happening around them.

I have seen girls in their first adolescence years telling their mothers not to pick them up from school because she wears the veil and they don’t want to be seen with them.

Or now I see my little sister, who is very proud of her culture, but I remember that when I was little, I felt ashamed and didn’t want to go to school after our holidays in Morocco with henna on my hands. I tried to wash it off, because the kids told me it was pooh and laughed at me.

On the contrary, I now see generations, the youngest, who are very proud of their culture, with henna on their hands, wearing the veil… I think we should appropriate our culture again and be proud of who we are. Because it’s true that sometimes we have tried to hide to get unnoticed, without causing a stir: go to work, feed our children, sleep and back again to the beginning.

And it’s our generation now who is vindicating more the richness of having a diverse identity, a diverse origin, being from here but also from there and being a richer person thanks to that.

“Sometimes we Muslims have tried to hide to get unnoticed, without causing a stir: go to work, feed our children, sleep and back again to the beginning”

You recently shared your experience opening a high-level meeting in front of the Justice European Commissioner, Vera Jourova, and other politicians of the EU countries. There were also other Muslim activists and civil representatives. Do you think it was useful?

I am always very optimistic. I don’t know if I’m so optimistic that I’m naïf, but I want to think that it was indeed. And if it is useless from the political point of view, I think that the civil society there are loads of things being done. I was very happy and proud to see that representation, mainly a female representation, in that meeting. Whenever I see Muslim ladies, so trained and ready to fight, I feel proud as if it was a personal achievement. Whether it is useful or not, I have learned a lot.

Ramia Chaoui holding the opening speech at a high-level meeting in Brussels. © Salam Plan

That meeting was in the European capital. There are Europeans afraid of Muslims not respecting democracy. What would you tell them?

I’d tell them that Islam is totally compatible with democracy; it just needs to be well understood.

I think there is much misinformation or confusion around terminology related to Islam. Nobody studies it in depth, the only interest is to take those paragraphs or alleyahs [Q’ran verses] out of context which may benefit someone politically to sow fear and get votes. In the end, it’s this manipulation and using Islam as a weapon to get personal benefit.

In fact, a well understood Islam promotes democracy.

“A well understood Islam promotes democracy”

Why?

For example, if we simply focus on the prophet Muhammad’s life, we can see that he always consulted people surrounding him, he always asked for advice, and that being -as we understand it- God’s envoy. One of the main pillars of democracy is the public query, what the majority thinks.

In the recent regional elections in Andalusia (southern Spain), Vox’s party got 12 seats and Muslims are a key part of their politics. In their election platform, they devote a chapter to Muslims under the title “Defence, Security and Borders”.

[She laughs slightly]. Ok, how funny, how nice. I prefer to think that the majority of people doesn’t read the election manifesto nor is very well informed of what they vote, because otherwise, we wouldn’t drift in the current direction.

The defence of Spanish unity doesn’t need to go hand in hand with harming and loosing civil rights nor with more confrontation. I believe people who voted for Vox voted for Spanish unity.

Vox stands for issues like “shutting fundamentalist mosques” or the “expulsion of imams who spread fundamentalism, the despise of women or Jihad”.

With “expulsion” I guess they mean foreign imams, but there are Spanish imams. What do we do with that? And “despise of women”, it’s them who want to repeal the bill on gender violence. I think it is a cheap, simplistic and superficial populism.

How do you think Islamophobia Will evolve in the next years in Spain?

I think there is more consciousness and people are getting to know more about Islamophobia. I think it will keep that direction. I hope politicians will be more careful in their discourses. I hope the situation will get better: the integration of so many women with veil who are already working, including me; that normalization of seeing Muslim women in each and every sphere of society.

Your channel is also for non- Muslim people who want to know more. If you were to explain in just a few words what it means to you to be Muslim, how would you describe it?

Being Muslim is being like any other person, but having in the centre of his or her daily priorities -or values- to try to be a better person for oneself and for the others and everything that surrounds us; also being beneficial and contribute to society.

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La entrada Ramia Schannel, the Muslim YouTuber from Spain who advised the European Commission se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

Timmermans hosted a meeting on Monday with eight spokespeople for religious organizations from across the EU, ranging from the Church of Greece to the Conference of European Rabbis. The imam of ‘El Fath’ mosque in Gent (Belgium), Khalid Benhaddou, who has been awarded with a Human Rights prize in his country, attended the meeting as representative of the European Muslims.

“Europe is home to people of many faiths, and every European has the right to practice his or her faith in peace and security. The European Commission will continue to stand up and speak up against any discrimination or attacks that their communities might face,” Timmermans said.

“While we may worship in different ways, our values are universal, including our commitment to democracy and equality”

The European Commission has sent a message of unity within the religious diversity which exists across the 28 countries of the European Union. Timmermans stuck for the democratic character all religions in Europe have. “While we may worship in different ways, our values are universal, including our commitment to democracy and equality.”

Participants at the meeting discussed how the EU is addressing “migration, social integration and the sustainability of our way of life”. These are the “main policy challenges Europe faces” ahead the European Parliament elections next May, according to the European Commission.

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This was the 14^th annual high-level meeting with religious leaders organised by the Commission. Since 2009, the dialogue with churches, religions, philosophical and non-confessional organisations is enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty (Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).

The religious leaders who took part are:

• Metropolitan ATHANASIOS of Achaia, Permanent Representative of the Church of Greece to the European Union
• Imam Khalid BENHADDOU, El Fath mosque, Gent, Belgium
• Bishop Mariano CROCIATA, Bishop of Latina, First Vice-President of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE)
• Rabbi Albert GUIGUI, Chief Rabbi of Brussels and Permanent Representative at Conference of European Rabbis
• Bishop Antoine HEROUARD, Auxiliary Bishop of Lille, President of the Commission on Social Affairs of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE)
• Bishop Robert INNES, Anglican Bishop in Europe
• Dr. Frank JULY, President Bishop of Wuerttemberg, Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), President of the EKD Commission on Europe
• Rev. Christian KRIEGER, President of the Reformed Protestant Church of Alsace and Lorraine, President of the Conference of European Churches (CEC)

La entrada Frans Timmermans, European vice-president: “Every European has the right to practice his or her faith in peace and security” se publicó primero en Salam Plan.

A boat with 130 people on board is in distress off the Libyan coast. The rescue vessel of the German NGO Sea-Watch arrives to rescue them, but on instructions from the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC) and its Libyan counterpart, they have to let the Coast Guard of the North African country take the survivors back. It does not matter that they were in international waters.

About twenty passengers of that vessel died, including children. Those who were taken back by Libyan coast guards, endured detentions “in inhumane conditions”, beatings, extortion, starvation and rape. Two of the survivors were “sold and tortured with electrocution.”

This week 17 of the survivors of that event last November have filed an application against Italy before the European Court of Human Rights, defending this version. They are represented by various legal and medical associations, including the prestigious Yale Law School.

Sea-Watch has long been denouncing similar episodes in international waters and describes them as “illegal and deadly”. They assure these pull-backs are orchestrated not only by Italy, but also by the European Union, which they blame for “facilitating forced returns to Libya”.

“Pull-backs to Libya are illegal and deadly”

— Sea-Watch

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has also criticized Italy, which coordinates rescues in the Central Mediterranean. On March 30, a boat operated by this NGO together with SOS Mediterranée arrived first to rescue some 120 people from a rubber boat “in distress”, according to the alert sent to them from the Italian coordination center. It was also in international waters near Libya and MSF says the center in Rome instructed them to stand by and not engage. They had to wait for the Libyan coast guards to arrive.

The situation of the boat worsened while they were waiting and the NGO negotiated to be able to deliver life jackets and to evaluate the people’s medical conditions. They identified 39 “medical and vulnerable cases” and could evacuate those. Among them there were a newborn, a pregnant woman and families with children.

MSF later said in a statement that due to the “violent reactions in recent months by the Libyan coast guard to the few other remaining humanitarian organizations” in the area, the crew could not “complete the rescue”. They had already other 253 people from other rescue operations on board and the Libyans ordered them to leave.

Another case is the one of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, which had its ‘Open Arms’ rescue ship in Italy recently withheld until a judge settled its release. Two members of the NGO formed by lifeguards still face charges of human trafficking, the same accusation against three Spanish firefighters of the small NGO Proem-Aid that in a brief court hearing in Athens were acquitted last Monday. Proactiva publicly denounced already last summer that the Libyan coast guards made some shots to try to prevent them from rescueing people near there territorial waters.

“European Governments actively enforce policies of deterrence and containment in Libya”

— Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

These are just some examples. The cases of pull-backs reported by humanitarian organizations continue to pile up week after week. MSF, which traditionally avoids making statements of  political nature to keep impartial, has said: “MSF continues to call on European Governments to prioritise the safety of refugees and migrants rather than actively enforcing policies of deterrence and containment in Libya.”

Libya is “hell for refugees”

The UN Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) has access to 12 “disembarking points” on the western coast of Libya as well as to detention centres. It ensures that the country is a “death trap” and “hell for refugees”. Moreover, the agency explains in its recent report “Desperate journeys” that those who are returned from the sea to Libya end up systematically in detention centres.

Another revealing data collected by UNHCR: the number of dead at sea crossing to Italy has “more than doubled”, with one death per 14 persons attempting to cross the Mediterranean in the first quarter of 2018 compared to one death every 29 persons in the same period last year. At the same time, arrivals by sea to Italy were reduced “dramatically” since July 2017. At the same time, boat rescues or interceptions by Libyan coast guards increased.

“Among those arriving in Italy from Libya there are more people in a state of extreme weakness and thinness, and in general with poor health”

— UNHCR

“In addition, in recent months there has been a worrying health deterioration of those arriving in Italy from Libya, with more people arriving in a state of extreme weakness and thinness, and in general with poor health,” UNHCR reported in April.

The changing factor between the beginning of 2017 and now is the agreement that Italy signed in February last year with the only government in Libya internationally recognized. Rome provides them with the necessary means and training to monitor the international waters near the North African country. It is also true that the UNHCR itself recognizes that thanks to Rome and that Libyan government (one of three who are fighting for power in the failed state) they have been able to evacuate several hundred refugees safely. But let’s go step by step.

The European Commission will not take action against Italy

The European Commission (EC) assures that making forced returns to Libya is illegal, as a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights made clear in 2012. However, in practice it moves between turning a blind eye and denying that these actions are taking place in international waters, with no intention of investigating the repeated claims of humanitarian organizations.

The Commission’s position was confirmed in the responses of its spokesperson, Natasha Bertaud, during a press conference on Tuesday. At the insistence of several journalists about the passivity of the Commission, she said: “European boats, including Italian boats, are acting in full respect of the principle of non-refoulement.” There is, therefore, no hint of sanction or warning to Italy, as it is happening respectively with Poland and Hungary in other matters.

“European boats, including Italian boats, are acting in full respect of the principle of ‘non-refoulement'”

— Natasha Bertaud, European Commission

Bertaud argued that they cannot interfere in an issue that, according to her, depends on regulations outside the European one. But article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union states that measures can be taken against a Member State when it does not respect the fundamental values ​​of the Union (article 2). Among them are “respect for human dignity”, “respect for human rights” and “a society in which [among other maxims] solidarity prevails”.

The spokeswoman for the Commission did describe as “regrettable” another incident that confronted Italy and the United Kingdom earlier this week. 105 people, including children, had been rescued at sea by another Proactiva ship. They had to wait more than 24 hours before they could be transferred to one operated by MSF, which was right next to it. The reason? Italy assured them that they were not under their jurisdiction, but under the British.

Italy’s agreement with a failed state

That returns of migrants to Libya are currently taking place, is a fact, according to Wolfgang Pusztai, someone who knows the situation on the ground first hand and one of the security advisors on Libyan issues to the EU and Italy. “There are currently a large number of migrants in the SAR (search and rescue) region of ​​Libya who are caught with the support of the Italian Maritime Coordination Centre in Rome and the Italian Navy – through information on the location of the boats- and transported back to Libya,” he confirmed to Salam Plan.

Whether these actions are legal or not depends, according to him, on the assessment of the situation of the refugees in Libya. We already know what UNHCR thinks, and it is an agency the European Commission works with in that country. Pusztai would not send back the migrants found at sea.

The agreement signed by the Executive of Matteo Renzi with the Libyan Government of National Accord last year has led to collaboration in the surveillance and rescue or interception of boats with migrants outside the Libyan territorial waters, but in an area that theoretically would correspond to the North African country. The Mediterranean is divided into search and rescue zones (SAR) and Italy has for years been responsible for the area that now Rome and Brussels are trying to transfer to Tripoli.

“There are currently a large number of migrants in the search and rescue region of ​​Libya who are ‘caught’ with the support of the Italian Maritime Coordination Centre in Rome  and transported back to Libya”

— Wolfgang Pusztai, security adviser to the EU and Italy

For that to be possible, there is a project of a Libyan Centre for Maritime Coordination (LMRRC), such as the one in Rome coordinating rescues in the central Mediterranean. It is an initiative of the Italian Coast Guard funded by the European Commission, “with the aim of conducting a feasibility study in order to establish a Libyan MRCC and to support the Libyan authorities in identifying and declaring their Search and Rescue Region”.

That is what they told the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This centre in Libya is essential to be able to declare a SAR zone, according to international maritime laws. Although an IMO representative has explained to Salam Plan that it is the countries -and not this organization- who recognize or not the legitimacy of a SAR area.

The complexity of the whole situation is due to the fact that Libya is a failed state. The country has been plunged into chaos since the fall of dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011. The three parallel governments of the country are fighting over territorial power not only with each other, but also with militias and terrorists like Daesh/ ISIS. The authority recognized by Western countries is the already mentioned Government of National Accord, which only controls the city of Tripoli, and not even completely, Pusztai says.

On the other hand, Italy does not act solely by virtue of the agreement with that government and with a half-implemented Libyan SAR area, but as part of the so-called ‘Operation Sophia‘. That military operation of the EU before the Libyan coasts to prevent irregular immigration, human trafficking while at the same time rescuing those boats in distress, as required by maritime law. The same that also gives training to the Libyan coast guard and provides them with means to operate.

A 2017 report by the Oxford Analytica consultancy for the European Council recognizes that “the rescue/interception of migrants in the Libyan SAR zone raises questions about the state responsible for the rescue operation and the port of disembarkation, which should be a ‘place of safety’”. At the same time, it reminds that the SAR Convention does not include the obligation to allow disembarkation in a particular port; neither does it oblige a state to accept the rescued people.

The pull-backs from international waters that denounced by humanitarian organizations occur in the area designated theoretically to Libya. Rome remains the legal authority to which their ships have to oblige, but Italy coordinates with them and with the Libyan coast guards.

The dangers of Libyan chaos

The annual report of Amnesty International 2017/18 states that in Libya all parties to the conflict carry out “indiscriminate attacks”, “serious violations” of international law and human rights. Torture and other ill-treatments are “widespread” practices in prisons. “Migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers were subjected to widespread and systematic serious human rights violations and abuses at the hands of state officials, smugglers and armed groups,” the study indicates.

There are also testimonies of migrants who claim to have been sold as slaves in Libya -a circumstance confirmed by Pusztai, the security expert- although he denies that it is happening on a large scale.

“Many of those who arrive to Italy by sea are persons fleeing violence and persecution, and people who had experienced trafficking, torture, and other forms of abuse in Libya”

— UNHCR

More than 662,000 migrants in Libyan territory are exposed to these dangers. The International Organization for Migration (IOM), deployed in the country, has counted among them 5,000 migrants currently detained, including children.

In addition, about 51,500 refugees and asylum seekers are registered at UNHCR. This is without counting the displaced Libyans themselves in their country, which are 184,000. This does not mean that other migrants in Libya cannot qualify for asylum in Europe. In fact, UNHCR explains in its recent report that among “those arriving to Italy by sea from Libya, many were seeking international protection including persons fleeing violence and persecution, and people who had experienced trafficking, torture, and other forms of abuse in Libya.”

“The current reception system, despite recent improvements, remains unacceptable as migrants remain in detention after being returned”

— International Organization for Migration (IOM)

This week, IOM positively assessed the work of the coast guards of Tripoli, who have intercepted one out of every three boats in recent months. But at the same time, it warned: “The current reception system, despite recent improvements, remains unacceptable as migrants remain in detention after being returned.”

Pusztai, the adviser to Rome and Brussels earlier mentioned, shows his concern for the “harassment” of the Libyan coast guards against the NGOs “to try to push them out” and “to be the only ones who can rescue”. Why are they so keen to pick up the people drowning in international waters (albeit within their theoretical area of ​​responsibility)? “That certainly also has to do with the Italians and the Europeans exercising the corresponding pressure. There is no doubt about that,” he says. “The Government of National Accord is completely dependent on international support.”

The responsibility of the EU

The document mentioned by leaders of the EU Member States recalls that “a safe place” to land shipwrecked people in accordance with the Geneva Convention is “a place on dry land where the lives and freedoms of those alleging a well- founded fear of persecution, torture, and ill-treatment would not be threatened.” Still, each government and European body interprets it differently.

For the socialist MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar the answer to whether Libya is a safe country to which migrants or asylum seekers should be sent back, is: “Flatly, no.” On Italy, this member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament emphasizes that “it has a history of convictions (and it is) under scrutiny (of the EP), but that does not prevent us from recognizing that it has invested its own resources to save lives at sea”.

Is Libya a safe country to which migrants or asylum seekers should be sent back? “Flatly, no. It’s a ‘non-state’ in which, unfortunately, Italy has been forced to look for local partners”

— Juan Fernando López Aguilar, MEP

He considers that the Italian Public Prosecutor’s Office is an independent body that will be able to judge the specific cases of alleged automatic returns, but he does not believe that Italy’s overall work in the central Mediterranean is comparable to the hot returns produced in places like Spanish Ceuta and Melilla, condemned by the Strasbourg Court of Justice.

“Libya was a failed state, now it is a ‘non-state’ (…) in which, unfortunately, Italy has been forced to look for (local) partners to try to alleviate the tremendous pressure that it has been suffering alone in recent years,” says the socialist MEP. He adds a crucial remark to assess the security or not of Libya: among those interlocutors with whome Rome “has reached some kind of understanding” there are also not only militias, but human trafficking networks.

>>> You may also want to read: The most surprising facts about the refugee crisis <<<

In spite of everything, a European high official familiar with the terrain that asks for anonymity assures Salam Plan: “Libya does not seem dangerous to me (…). It depends a lot on the area. Regarding immigrants, the south controlled by Tebus and Touaregs is much more dangerous than the areas of departure at the coast. Western Libya, near Tunis, is relatively quiet.”

Nevertheless, he recognizes that in Libya “immigrants won’t be able to be protected the same way as in Europe, especially if they are refugees”. Asked about “the pull-back of migrants found adrift in the Mediterranean and returned to Libya by order of the center of Rome”, this person recognizes that “that is illegal according to a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).”

The case that ruling refered to was also against Italy, which in May 2009 intercepted a ship in the middle of the Mediterranean with 834 people on board and returned them to Libya. At that time, Gaddafi still ruled the country, but the work document of the European Council does not make distinctions with the current moment: “As stated by the ECtHR, (…) Libya cannot be considered a ‘place of safety’ because of the well-documented inadequacy of its response to flows of migrants and asylum seekers.”

The European Commission therefore maintains that hot returns are illegal, but it denies that they are occurring. On the other hand, the Commission explains to this website that they work with UNHCR and IOM “to improve the conditions of people who are trapped in Libya.” They also collaborate to evacuate migrants there legally, either by returning them to their countries of origin or by resettling them.

In the last three months, UNHCR has been able to safely evacuate more than 1,000 asylum seekers and refugees to Italy and Niger. But the Agency for Refugees continues to struggle to have access to all migrants and asylum seekers in order to evaluate their request.

“Everything indicates that (pull-backs) will keep on rising. It is happening more and more often”

— Laura Lanuza, spokesperson for the NGO Proactiva Open Arms

Pusztai acknowledges that the European Commission “has been much stricter with Hungary and Poland” than with Italy. He assures that precisely because of the situation of insecurity in Libya, eventual investigations on the ground would be “very difficult” to conduct. Even so, this expert believes that the reports of UNHCR and IOM are reliable. “Everything here comes back to the question of what is still ‘acceptable’. The answer of the Italians is obvious”, he resolves.

It cannot be forgotten that the EU has also formed and provided means to the Libyan coast guards and is financing the project of a possible maritime control centre in Libya.

Possible short-term solutions

“Many of us have been complaining for a long time against hypocrisy, that the EU continue to return so-called irregular migrants – even if they are asylum seekers – without giving an option for regulation at origin,” MEP López Aguilar regrets. He advocates for “humanitarian visas“, which would give a limited entry permit only to be able to raise the asylum or subsidiary protection request once in the EU, if they cannot present it in their countries of origin.

Pusztai proposes another possible transitory solution: to construct migrant and refugee camps on uninhabited or sparsely inhabited islets of the Mediterranean where these people can make their applications. The European authorities could study each case before deciding whether they are entitled to asylum here or whether they are economic migrants and should be sent back to their place of origin.

“I think it is urgent to save these people and evaluate them before bringing them to Europe. Everything else would not be really responsible,” explains this expert. He does not say it solely because of the humanitarian concerns, but also because in his opinion both the Operation Sophia ships and those of the NGOs exert a “suction effect”.

He mentions another aspect to be taken into account: Daesh is recruiting sub-Saharan Africans who have already attacked in Tripoli. For this reason he estimates that they could leak among the migrants on the boats. It is worth remembering here that the vast majority of the so-called ‘jihadist’ attacks on European soil have been carried out by people born or raised here, such as the attacks in Paris or Catalonia. While it is true that in some cases, like the young man who attacked the passengers of a Bavarian train with an ax, he was a radicalized refugee.

>>> You may also want to read: The true meaning of ‘jihad’ and how ISIS fails to accomplish it step by step <<<

Humanitarian organizations insist that it is essential to establish legal and safe passage for asylum seekers. But while a solution to the so-called “migratory flow” is found in the central Mediterranean, Italy is already applying its agreement with Libya without much European scrutiny.

So far this year, more than 9,500 migrants or asylum seekers have arrived in Italy across the Mediterranean, according to IOM. So far, at least 385 people have died in that journey. Meanwhile, almost 6,000 migrants have been returned to Libya.

“Everything indicates that (pull-backs) will keep on rising. It is happening more and more often,” says Laura Lanuza, spokesperson for the NGO Proactiva Open Arms. And she warns: when the Libyan coast guards take the people back they do not rescue them, they “capture” them.

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La entrada The truth about the alleged pull-backs of migrants from the sea to Libya se publicó primero en Salam Plan.