From the Streets of Tripoli to the ICC: Five Years of Struggle and Solidarity with Refugees in Libya
INVITATION
3 October 2026 · Spore Initiative, Berlin - register here
On 1 October 2021, after the mass raids in Gargaresh, thousands of us were arrested across Tripoli. Many were taken to detention centres. Others escaped and gathered outside the UNHCR office. We stayed there for more than three months, demanding protection, evacuation, freedom and an end to the violence we were living through in Libya.
That became the 100 Days Protest.
Five years later, we are still here.
On 3 October, we will gather in Berlin with the Alliance with Refugees in Libya, ECCHR and Spore Initiative to look back at those five years, but also to speak about what is still happening now and what lies ahead.
The event comes at an important moment. Khaled El Hishri, a former official at Mitiga Prison, is now before the International Criminal Court. All 17 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes against him have been confirmed, and the case has been committed to trial.
For many of us, this case did not begin when El Hishri was arrested or when the ICC opened proceedings. It began years ago, inside Mitiga and other places of detention, when people were tortured, raped, enslaved, humiliated, disappeared and killed. Some survivors have waited more than twelve years to see this case reach the point where a trial is now approaching.
But El Hishri is one case within a much wider system.
Refugees and migrants have been detained, tortured, exploited and subjected to sexual violence across Libya for years. People attempting to escape by sea have been intercepted and returned to the same system. European governments and institutions have continued to finance, equip and support structures responsible for interception and containment while presenting this as “migration management”.
The El Hishri trial therefore gives us an important opening. We want justice for the crimes committed at Mitiga, but we also want the proceedings to bring wider questions into public view: who built and sustained this system, who benefited from it, who financed it, and why accountability so often stops before reaching the most powerful actors involved.
The first part of the event will return to the 100 Days Protest and the five years that followed. We will speak about what brought us together in Tripoli, what we were demanding, how Refugees in Libya continued after the protest, and what our communities are still facing today.
A panel will then focus on the El Hishri case, survivor participation and the struggle for accountability, with David Yambio from Refugees in Libya, Allison West from ECCHR and an additional speaker, moderated by Hanaa Hakiki.
The discussion will look at what meaningful participation in international justice means for survivors, what the ICC proceedings can offer and where their limits lie. It will also ask what the experiences of refugees and migrants detained at Mitiga reveal about the broader detention system in Libya and its relationship with European border policy.
After a food break, the second half of the event will open the conversation further.
We want to meet and exchange with migrant-led groups, African diaspora organisations, anti-racist movements, border abolitionist struggles, lawyers, journalists, researchers, artists and others who are working against the same systems from different places.
The question is not only how people can stand in solidarity with Refugees in Libya. It is also how our struggles connect, what we can learn from one another and what we can actually do together.
How can survivors participate in legal and political processes without being reduced to testimony? How can legal cases become opportunities for organising outside the courtroom? How can migrant-led movements, diaspora communities, anti-racist struggles and legal advocacy strengthen one another at a time when anti-migrant politics are becoming increasingly normalised across Europe?
A multimedia exhibition will accompany the event, bringing photographs, testimonies and material from the 100 Days Protest into the space.
This is not about looking back at something that ended five years ago.
The people we protested for are still being detained. People are still being intercepted at sea and returned to Libya. People are still being tortured, exploited and denied protection.
And we are still here.
Programme
15:30 · Doors open and exhibition
16:00 · Five Years of Struggle by Refugees in Libya
A conversation about the 100 Days Protest, the years that followed and where we are today.
16:45 · The El Hishri Case at the ICC: Survivor Participation and the Struggle for Accountability
With David Yambio, Refugees in Libya; Allison West, ECCHR; and an additional speaker.
Moderated by Hanaa Hakiki.
18:00 · Food and informal exchange
18:45 · From Solidarity to Action
Small-group conversations on survivor participation, migrant-led struggles, solidarity, legal advocacy and mobilisation.
3 October 2026
Spore Initiative
Entry free · Event in English
Register / RSVP here
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