Libya, the North African country that swims in gas and oil and is a key transit point for controlling migratory flows to Europe, remains fractured and plagued by violence by armed groups 13 years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. On the verge of becoming a failed state, things can get even worse. One of its strong men, the warlord and acting Interior Minister, Emad Trabelsi, has announced the creation of a morality policeto monitor the imposition of the Islamic veil on all women from the age of nine. The strict interpretation of the shariaor religious law that the ruler intends to apply entails the prohibition of Libyans traveling without the company of a guardian masculine and the joint presence of men and women in cafes and other public spaces.
Civil society activists, international human rights NGOs and the European Union have opposed the imposition of a morality police, like the one that exists in Iran, for being contrary to the principles of non-discrimination of the Constitutional Declaration of Libya, the provisional fundamental law of the Maghreb country that was approved after the fall of Gaddafi in 2011. Trabelsi has been head of the militias of the so-called Public Security Agency, accused by Amnesty International of serious crimes against migrants and refugees in transit through the North African country, considered contrary to international humanitarian law.
The controversial minister belongs to the Government of National Unity, which exercises its power in Tripoli and the west of the country, recognized by the international community. The prime minister, wealthy businessman Abdelhamid Dabeiba, is directly backed by Türkiye and Qatar. From Benghazi, Marshal Khalifa Hafter, a military man opposed to Gaddafi who went into exile in the United States, controls eastern Libya and the main hydrocarbon deposits with the support of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
The measures to restore “morality and decency” announced last week by the Libyan Minister of the Interior affect women’s clothing and their relationship with men. Trabelsi has threatened unmarried couples caught in public with jail sentences. He has also warned that cafes and other establishments will be closed, such as hookah smoking rooms or hair salons, where “inappropriate behavior is observed, such as sitting together in a place.” “There is no room for personal freedom in Libya,” the minister warned when advancing the reinstatement of the police specialized in clothing and good habits. It is not “acceptable,” he emphasized, for a woman to dress indecently and not wear the hijab or Islamic scarf. He also recommended that those who want to behave differently leave the country.
From Libyan society, jurist Mohamed Abdel Salam denies Trabelsi the power to amend legislation from the executive branch, by “attacking personal freedom” and violating fundamental norms, according to Efe. Like most Islamic countries, the Libyan constitutional text establishes sharia as an informing principle. As Libyan lawyer Nuria al Taher emphasizes, the Constitution guarantees the right not to suffer discrimination above religion, so rights cannot be restricted “under the pretext of a confessional appearance.”
For the same reasons, the Libyan NGO National Human Rights Commission has asked the attorney general to suspend the creation of the police force. The political leader Layla Ben Jalifa, candidate in the failed 2021 presidential elections, has accused Minister Trabelsi of trying to win over the most fundamentalist sectors in future elections, by imposing restrictive measures for women. Presidential and legislative elections were scheduled for December 2021, but were finally postponed. Almost three years later, there is no scheduled date for the votes provided for in the Skhirat Agreements, signed by the opposing parties in that town on the outskirts of Rabat with the mediation of the international community.
Written permission from a ‘guardian’
Given the prohibitions advanced by the Minister of the Interior, which includes the veto against women being able to travel abroad without the written permission of their guardian—whether father, husband, son or brother—, NGOs such as Human Rights Watch have denounced that they represent a “flagrant violation of the rights of Libyan women and girls, which lacks a legal basis.” Since last year, Libyan women must fill out a form at the borders to justify that they can travel abroad without male family authorization. Libya has signed numerous international human rights treaties, such as the Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa, which obliges member states to end all forms of discrimination and to abolish restrictions on women’s freedom of movement.
The International Commission of Jurists has also questioned the creation of a police brigade intended to “protect values and traditions.” This same organization recalls that Libya already entrusted the General Authority of Islamic Affairs in 2023 with a program of “guardians of virtue” against “religious and moral deviations.”
“The threat from the Minister of the Interior represents a dangerous escalation in the already suffocating repression suffered by those who do not submit to the dominant social norms in Libya,” says Bassam al Kantar, Amnesty International researcher for the Maghreb country. The EU ambassador in Libya, Nicola Orlandohas also reminded Minister Trabelsi, according to Efe, that Brussels’ association agreements with the Maghreb country “are firmly rooted in respect for universal human rights.”
