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UNSMIL Launches Campaign Against ‘Hate Speech’ in Libya

Young men from western Libya attend a workshop hosted by UNSMIL in Tripoli. Photo: UNSMIL
Young men from western Libya attend a workshop hosted by UNSMIL in Tripoli. Photo: UNSMIL
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UNSMIL Launches Campaign Against ‘Hate Speech’ in Libya

Young men from western Libya attend a workshop hosted by UNSMIL in Tripoli. Photo: UNSMIL
Young men from western Libya attend a workshop hosted by UNSMIL in Tripoli. Photo: UNSMIL

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) launched a campaign against “hate speech” in Libya and warned on Sunday about the negative effects of the phenomenon in a deeply divided country, which has been governed by a “fragile” ceasefire agreement since October 2020.

In recent days, the mission sponsored workshops in dozens of cities, including Tripoli and Benghazi, to discuss and evaluate the phenomenon of hate speech and to examine ways to address it.

Under the slogan “No To Hate Speech,” the UN mission raised concerns about hostile rhetoric based on religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, origin, gender or any other factor of identity.

Since the fall of late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, hate speech spread in Libya and it further extended in 2019, when Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan National Army, called on his military forces to advance on Tripoli.

Akram Al-Najjar, editor-in-chief of the Allash platform, told Asharq Al-Awsat that hate speech across Libya mainly increases when reports emerge about a possible change of government in Tripoli or during wars.

A Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) under Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021 but the Benghazi-based House of Representatives (HoR) no longer recognizes its legitimacy.

Dbeibah has vowed not to cede power to a new government without national elections.

Amid the political disputes in Libya, the UNSMIL workshops in Tripoli focused on highlighting the distinctions between hate speech and freedom of speech.

Youth participants expressed their concern about the increase of hate speech against different groups on social media, calling for a public campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of incendiary rhetoric.

Eleven young men and women from western Libya participated in the Tripoli workshop, which ended last week. They spoke about the importance of media literacy and recognizing media bias.

“Media bias and hate speech are global issues,” one participant said. “The cultural context may differ from one place to another, but we all share the same rights, and we must stand against hate speech wherever it occurs.”

During the deliberations, attendees emphasized the role that media and politicians play in disseminating misinformation and hateful rhetoric, which can lead to armed confrontations and violence against specific groups or individuals.

“The security situation in Libya is very fragile,” one participant said. “Sometimes, even minor incidents can amplify hate speech between cities and threaten violent escalation.”

Concerns were also raised about hostile rhetoric being directed at different religious sects in Libya by official entities.

“Incitement in the name of religion, especially over minor differences, is one of the most dangerous forms of hate speech, and it may lead to severe consequences,” another participant said.

To prevent a hostile rhetoric in Libya, participants recommended that awareness of hate speech and cybercrimes should be incorporated into the educational curriculum from an early age.

They also called on Libyan media to avoid the rhetoric of political polarization, promote peace, and embrace a code of ethics.

“Cultural exchange programs must be launched with neighboring countries to combat xenophobia and strengthen relations with host communities,” the participants said.

They also recommended the support of local fact-checking initiatives and the use of AI to identify and report hateful rhetoric and disinformation.

Participants then advocated for social justice and decentralization in governance and development, prioritizing transparency.

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Shining Light on Austin Tice who Went Missing in Syria

A banner for journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, hangs outside the National Press Club building in Washington, US, May 2, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File phot
A banner for journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, hangs outside the National Press Club building in Washington, US, May 2, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File phot
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Shining Light on Austin Tice who Went Missing in Syria

A banner for journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, hangs outside the National Press Club building in Washington, US, May 2, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File phot
A banner for journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, hangs outside the National Press Club building in Washington, US, May 2, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File phot

In recent months, American officials have raised the fate of Austin Tice in talks with Syria’s new leadership, led by its interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The American citizen vanished in 2012 in a Damascus suburb.

According to Britain’s The Economist, the American side still insists that Tice may be alive and says there is no evidence of his death.

The magazine has spoken with an Assad-regime insider and gained one of the first authoritative public accounts of the abduction and an insight into one of the former Syrian regime’s darkest secrets.

The source is Safwan Bahloul, a high-ranking general in then Syrian president Bashar Assad’s security state. He has chosen to speak out and share details of Tice’s ordeal. He confirms that Tice was held not by opposition groups, but rather by the Syrian state, with Assad’s full knowledge, and was held for some time in a compound of the former president’s most trusted aide. The general also reveals his own culpability.

In the summer of 2012, Bassam al-Hassan, a shadowy adviser in Assad’s inner circle, learned that Tice was in the suburbs of Damascus. He set in motion a plan to seize him, according to General Bahloul. A freelance journalist contributing to the Washington Post, Tice was preparing to take a break in Lebanon after a grueling period reporting in opposition-held Syria. He sought a fixer to try to cross the border, and it turned out the fixer was working for Hassan, the general claims.

After he was captured, Tice was held in a garage inside Hassan’s compound, not far from the presidential palace, says the general. The site lay outside the regime’s formal prison system—off the books and under direct control of Assad loyalists. Was Assad aware of the abduction? “He knew, absolutely, he was happy with the capture,” the general says.

Bahloul was ordered to interrogate Tice. The journalist “had a satellite communications device...an iPhone and another small phone. I started going through his phone book, you know, trying to have a clue who he is.”

Bahloul confirms that Tice managed to escape his cell for 24 hours (this was originally reported by Reuters). The general himself was suspected of aiding the escape attempt (something he denies), though he was later cleared.

“He rubbed his body with the soap in order to lubricate his chest when getting through the window, and he used the towel...There was broken glass, cemented broken glass on top of a fence. So, he put it upon it, and then he climbed it and threw himself to the other side,” said the general. Tice was recaptured.

Bahloul has settled his affairs with Syria’s new rulers and is one of a handful of senior officers not to have fled the country. He says he did not see Tice again after his fourth and final interrogation. The last confirmed information on the reporter was a video uploaded to YouTube in September 2012 in which he is seen blindfolded and surrounded by masked men shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

American officials believe the video was staged to make it look like Tice had been captured by militants and not the regime. The video was masterminded by Hassan and shot in the countryside north of Damascus, says Bahloul.

In December, as the Assad regime crumbled, thousands of desperate prisoners were broken out of Syria’s sprawling torture-and-detention network after Assad fled to Moscow, raising hopes that Tice might be among them. He was not.

Today the Trump administration and Tice’s family continue to ask questions. One possibility is that he is alive and still in Syria, perhaps hidden somewhere in the remote farmland of the country’s Alawite coastal heartland, parts of which remain outside the control of Sharaa’s security forces. Another is that he was spirited out of the country to Iran, or Hezbollah-controlled parts of Lebanon. Or he may have been abandoned in a hidden prison, or killed amid the chaos of the revolution, another victim of Assad’s reign of terror. One man may have the answer: Hassan, the shadowy adviser, who is believed to have fled to Iran and may now be in Beirut.