300 experts condemn EU anti-migrant military plans
Hundreds of leading migration experts have condemned the European Union’s plans for a military operation to fight human smugglers in the Mediterranean Sea.
In a jointly-signed article published on the Open Democracy website on Thursday, more than 300 experts questioned the "moral justification" for targeting boats with poor migrants aboard.
"Where is the moral justification for some of the world's richest nations employing their naval and technological might in a manner that leads to the death of men, women and children from some of the world's poorest and most war-torn regions?" the experts and academics asked, adding, "A dangerous perversion of history is being peddled to answer this question."
The experts from leading global universities including Oxford, Harvard and Princeton, said the EU’s comparison of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean with a 21st-century “slave trade” is misleading.
"As scholarship on the history of slavery makes painfully clear, what is happening in the Mediterranean today does not even remotely resemble the transatlantic slave trade," they said.
Instead of addressing the root causes of the crisis, the EU says it aims to tackle traffickers behind the trade that has led to huge loss of lives in the Mediterranean.
The migrants were mostly from North Africa, traveling in flimsy boats.
EU defense ministers approved the plans this week in a bid to halt human trafficking to their shores and stem the flow of migrants from North Africa’s coastal waters.
This came following a number of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks ever witnessed in the Mediterranean so far this year.
Most of the boats load the migrants in the lawless shores of the war-ravaged Libya, where persisting national conflict among rival governing bodies has allowed human traffickers to operate with impunity.
Over 5,000 refugees were killed over the past 18 months as boats operated by human traffickers capsized off Libya's coastal waters, alarming European authorities to stop the flow of migrants.
DB/MHB/SS
West-funded body conspired against EU anti-fraud office after corruption findings: Report
EU slams US over visa ban on officials regulating 'online censorship rules'
US weighs sanctions against Spanish ships over blocked arms shipment to Israel
Venezuelan military stands with acting president after US kidnapping of Maduro
VIDEO | Press TV's news headlines
VIDEO | Protesters in Toronto slam US kidnapping of Venezuelan president
Israeli troops detain, intimidate Palestinian toddler in West Bank
Iran says its investments in Venezuela face no major risk
Make ‘right decision’ or face more US pressure, Rubio tells Venezuela’s Rodriguez
VIDEO | General Soleimani honored in Kashmir, Kargil
US, Israel waging ‘soft warfare’ to destabilize Iran after June defeat: Top general
PressTV NEWSLETTER
now
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
