“Human Rights and Asylum” — Why the EU’s Anti-Pirate Laws Are Failing
The European Union’s attempts to crack down on modern-day sea pirates off the coast of Africa are doomed to failure because of its own “human rights” and asylum policies, it has been revealed.
According to reports, Somali pirates are either not arrested at all when captured or are allowed to go free by the Royal Navy and other European Union member ships patrolling the east coast of Africa.
The pirates have launched a wave of new attacks recently so that piracy incident figures are double that of last year,
More often than not, according to press reports, pirates captured are given medical checks, life jackets, hot food and then set free — because they have not been “caught in the act of piracy” or because there is a genuine risk that they would claim asylum if taken for prosecution in Europe.
The possibility of transporting them to Europe for trial first emerged after it became apparent that the African nation which had agreed to prosecute the pirates — Kenya — was incapable of successfully completing any court cases.
More often than not, the few cases in Kenya which have made it to court have collapsed as prosecutors have failed to present evidence.
According to official figures, more than 340 Somali pirates have been captured in anti-piracy operations since January this year but have then been released to ply their trade once again.
Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991 when the overthrow of a dictatorship plunged the country into chaos. Besides frequent land battles, the power vacuum has also allowed pirates to operate freely around Somalia’s 1,900-mile coastline.
Media reports revealed how Royal Navy and other EU craft have successfully captured hundreds of pirates, but, faced with the prospect of having them claim “asylum” in Europe, have simply put them back out to sea on their craft after seizing their weapons.
The Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean have become some of the most dangerous waters in the world because of the Somali pirates. Three naval operations are tasked with combating piracy: a NATO force; a combined taskforce involving the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Pakistan and other countries; and Navfor, an EU force.
The ongoing chaos in Somalia is the result of faction fighting between warlords of different persuasions, many of them Islamist in origin. Usually the pirates are left alone to do their work, except in November last year when they made the mistake of attacking The Sirius Star, a Saudi vessel with a cargo of oil.
Shortly after that ship was seized, an Islamist militia stormed the Somali port of Haradheere in a hunt for the pirates. According to a report in The New York Times, a tribal elder in the region said the “Islamists say they will attack the pirates for hijacking a Muslim ship.”
Sheik Abdirahim Isse Adow, an Islamist spokesman in Somalia, told the same newspaper that “Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and hijacking its ship is a bigger crime than other ships. Haradheere is under our control and we shall do something about that ship.”
