The act of a Libyan prisoner in Italy sewing his mouth shut and going on an open hunger strike has triggered a wave of widespread shock in human rights circles, and has brought back to the forefront the file of five Libyan prisoners who have been in Italian prisons for more than a decade, amid renewed demands to activate the agreement on the exchange of convicts between the two countries.
A video recording broadcast by the Libyan prisoner Muhannad Nuri Khashiba turned into shocking material that aroused wide interest among human rights activists, bloggers, and local media, after he announced his entry into a hunger and thirst strike, and sewing his mouth shut in protest against the conditions of his detention and what he described as a suffocating state of despair.
Khashiba explained that he was placed in solitary confinement after a "skirmish" with security elements inside the prison, pointing out that his threat of suicide came as a result of his feeling of a dead end after many years of imprisonment without a clear horizon for a solution, despite previous promises to transfer them to spend the remainder of their sentences in Libya.
In a desperate tone, the Libyan prisoner admitted in the visual clip that what he did was "religiously contrary", but he considered it an inevitable result of what he called "the overflowing of the measure", after spending about 11 years behind bars, stressing that he would end his strike as soon as the announcement of their deportation to Libya, or in the event of being officially informed of the impossibility of implementing that.
Khashiba is one of five Libyan football players who were convicted in Italy on charges related to "human trafficking and illegal immigration", where an Italian court sentenced them on December 6, 2015 to 30 years in prison, while their families confirm that they were seeking to immigrate for the purpose of professional sports in Europe.
According to human rights activists, these developments have reactivated the file of detainees, amid calls from Libyan organizations for urgent intervention. The Libyan Organization for Human Rights in Benghazi expressed its shock at what happened, and described sewing the mouth and the open strike as a "tragic scene that reflects the level of despair and psychological collapse inside prisons".
The organization considered that what happened represents a "cry for help that requires urgent action", warning of a "humanitarian catastrophe" in light of their continued detention for many years with what it described as harsh sentences, calling on both Saddam Haftar, the deputy commander of the National Army, and Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the Prime Minister of the National Unity Government, to intervene immediately to activate the prisoner exchange agreement with Italy.
In contrast, no official comment has been issued by the Libyan authorities in the east or west, nor by the Italian side, regarding the latest developments, although the file has witnessed separate movements between the ministries of justice and foreign affairs, and the Attorney General Al-Siddiq Al-Sour in Tripoli, in addition to the House of Representatives.
Libya and Italy had signed an agreement to exchange prisoners in the city of Palermo on September 29, 2023, before it was ratified by the Italian Parliament last November, in a move that was considered a prelude to activating the mechanism for transferring convicts between the two countries.
