The bodies keep washing ashore in southern Italy. Young twins. A new-born baby. Twenty children among the sixty bodies so far…

The wreck of a wooden boat full of refugees off the coast of Calabria this weekend will inevitably be called “the latest tragedy” in the Mediterranean Sea, as if it were some kind of unavoidable natural disaster. But like other such deaths before it, these were avoidable and human-made.

These 60 people – many thought to be from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan – are the latest victims of the EU’s deliberate “let them die” policy in the Mediterranean, which has killed thousands in recent years.

Responding to the deadly wreck, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “we must redouble our efforts” on the migration pact and “plan of action” on the central Mediterranean.

But this is exactly the EU policy that’s leading to so many wrecks and so many deaths. Von der Leyen wants to double down on it?

Why don’t EU policy makers ever stop to consider why people are getting on shoddy boats in the first place? They’re not handing traffickers whatever’s left of their life’s savings because they’re looking for a bit of adventure. They’re not risking their children’s lives for the thrill of it.

They are doing it because they have no other option. The EU has given them no other choices. No meaningful safe and legal pathway is open to them.

And EU policies are not just administrative blocks. They refuse to re-introduce proactive search-and rescue-operations under EU auspices, and some EU members, like Greece and Italy, are even preventing other people saving lives at sea. The EU is also complicit in torture in Libya by illegally helping to send asylum seekers back there.

EU policies prioritize death and pain over saving human lives in the mistaken belief that “acting tough” will make people stop trying to get to the EU. But all it does is force desperate people to make ever more dangerous decisions.

How many children’s bodies have to wash up on EU shores before the EU changes its deadly policies?

How can “fighting corruption” be a bad thing?

When it’s used for political purposes. Tunisia provides a good example, with a rule-of-law tailspin as a result.

President Kais Saied dismissed 49 judges and prosecutors as part of what he called an anti-corruption campaign, but it looks more like a straightforward power grab. A court ordered his justice ministry to reinstate the 49, but it has refused to do so.

They’re not appealing the court’s ruling – they actually can’t do that. They are just ignoring it. And preparing criminal cases against the dismissed judges.

The refusal to reinstate the dismissed judges and prosecutors is among the latest moves against the judicial branch that Saied has taken since 2021, when he said he would take over supervision of public prosecution. He earlier dissolved the High Judicial Council, a constitutional body mandated to guarantee the independence of the judiciary, replacing it with a 21-member body for which he appoints nine members.

Again, this is all supposedly being done to fight corruption, the president claims.

But as my colleague Salsabil Chellali, HRW’s Tunisia director, says: “The fight against corruption should not be instrumentalized for political purposes and should be carried out in compliance with the rule of law.”

Where is Idris Arsamikov?

This is the question ten international and Russian human rights organizations are asking today.

On February 15, Russian authorities arrested Arsamikov, 28, on fabricated fraud charges, in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport and transferred him to Chechnya, a lawless zone inside Russia.

This is deeply disturbing because a few years ago, Chechen police detained and tortured Arsamikov for his presumed homosexuality. Chechnya’s anti-gay purge and crackdown have been notorious for brutal torture.

Arsamikov managed to flee Russia in 2018 and received refugee status in the Netherlands. However, in March 2022, he returned to Russia to attend his father’s funeral.

Today, Idris Arsamikov has been disappeared into the hell of Chechnya once again. His whereabouts are unknown, and his safety and life are at risk.

(compiled by Lisa Maier)

• Nepal: new government should keep rights pledges (HRW) 
• Mayhem in the West Bank, Israeli settlers rampage through Palestinian town (Haaretz) 
• Thousands protest electoral reforms in Mexico (DW) 
• 20 years since war began in Sudan’s Darfur, suffering continues (AJE)

Regular readers will remember back in December, when we discussed how Human Rights Watch and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University would co-administer the Human Rights Press Awards, recognizing the best in human rights reporting in Asia.

For more than a quarter century, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong did this, but that became impossible after the Chinese government imposed a “national security” law on Hong Kong.

Well, here’s an update: we have received 406 entries for the awards, and they come from 33 countries.

Now, the judges’ work begins…