The Tilawt Report
A rigorous, evidence-based record of the State of Libya's systematic Arabization policies against the Indigenous Amazigh people, mapped article by article against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Erasure on paper is the rehearsal for erasure in life.
How to read the Tilawt Report
The Tilawt Report documents part of the violations by the State of Libya against the rights of the Indigenous Amazigh people, analysed against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is written entirely by Amazigh researchers, and every policy it cites is drawn from a state-issued legal document. It is a working record rather than a complete account: it does not document every right affected, and further findings will be added as the work continues.
The report is organised into thematic chapters. Within each chapter, every documented violation follows the same four-tier structure, which you will see mirrored throughout this page and in the explorer at the end.
Findings
Direct evidence of the identified laws, regulations, and state practices.
Analysis of Violated Rights
The specific Indigenous rights under UNDRIP being suppressed.
State Breaches
How the State of Libya fails the legal obligations it is bound to uphold.
Compounded Analysis
How the individual violations aggregate into a systemic, life-long impact.
The scale of structural violence
The report's authors mapped state legislation across every era of the Libyan state. The headline figures below are the documented totals; each is unpacked, with its legal sources, in the chapters further down.
A "cradle to grave" process
The report describes an assimilation machine that leaves no stage of an Amazigh life untouched. Assimilation begins with the name on a birth certificate and follows a person through school, work, worship, and the land beneath their feet.
Identity & names
Amazigh personal names are banned for newborns; existing names are retroactively Arabized in the civil registry. Children with Amazigh names can be barred from school.
Education
Arabic is the sole language of instruction; curricula negate or distort Amazigh history. Disabled Amazigh children are placed in centres mandating Arabic-only communication.
Profession
To work, an Amazigh must submit to Arabized structures, including membership of over seventy "Arab-labelled" unions, with senior roles reserved for "Arabist" credentials.
Religion
Ibadhi Islam, central to Amazigh identity and practised exclusively by Amazigh in Libya, faces forced Maliki/Hanbali education and fatwas declaring Ibadhis apostates.
Territory
Ancient Amazigh toponyms are replaced with Arabic substitutes; the whole territory is defined as "Arab homeland," justifying dispossession and settlement.
The record
The Amazigh are absent from maps, schools, and even death registries. The report warns that administrative erasure is often the precursor to physical destruction.
What UNDRIP guarantees
The whole report is measured against one yardstick: the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Here is what that is, and the articles the report relies on most.
What is UNDRIP?
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007 and is the most comprehensive international instrument on the rights of Indigenous peoples. It sets a universal framework of minimum standards for their survival, dignity, and well-being, covering self-determination, culture, language, land, and the right to live free from forced assimilation.
It creates no new rights. It clarifies how universal human rights already binding on states, through treaties Libya has ratified, apply to Indigenous peoples. The Amazigh, through the Amazigh World Congress, took part in drafting it.
Equality & non-discrimination
Indigenous peoples are free and equal, with the right to be free from any discrimination based on their origin or identity.
Self-determination
The right to freely determine political status and pursue economic, social, and cultural development.
Against forced assimilation
The right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of culture, with state mechanisms for redress.
Languages & names
The right to revive and transmit languages and to assign and keep their own names for people and places.
Spiritual traditions
The right to manifest, practise, and teach spiritual and religious traditions, customs, and ceremonies.
Lands & resources
The right to the lands, territories, and resources traditionally owned, occupied, or used.
Rights violated documented so far
Every documented finding is tested against a specific UNDRIP article. The chart shows how often each right is invoked across the findings recorded so far, a rough map of where the pressure falls hardest. This is not a complete account of every right affected; it reflects the violations documented to date, and the work is ongoing.
These counts reflect how often each right is invoked across the documented findings. They are a guide to where the documented pressure is heaviest, not a ranking of severity.
This is not a documentation of all the rights affected. It records the violations set down so far, and further rights and breaches will be added as the work continues. Use the explorer below to read each documented entry in full.
Eight domains of erasure
Each chapter follows the same four-tier structure: the documented findings, the Indigenous rights suppressed, the state obligations breached, and a compounded analysis of how the violations aggregate. Select a chapter to open it.
State Identity
Libya's constitution, anthem, flag, public holidays, and even its time zone encode an exclusively Arab national identity. The 1951 flag's colours align with Pan-Arab caliphal symbolism; the anthem glorifies the Umayyad "conquerors" of North Africa. The state has never declared a single Amazigh national day, while readily adding new Arab-themed ones.
The report further documents how Libya projected this identity internationally, influencing UN bodies (UNSMIL's "cultural components" language, the UN-Habitat Arab Land Initiative, the Arab Towns Organization's ECOSOC status) to normalise Amazigh erasure beyond its borders.
Recognition of the Amazigh People
The foundational violation: Libya refuses to acknowledge the Amazigh as a distinct Indigenous people, recognising them at most as a "cultural component" without collective rights. This denial of peoplehood removes their legal standing to claim Indigenous rights at all, forcing them to litigate only as individual citizens.
Land, language, Ibadhi faith, symbols, holidays, and self-governance institutions (the Supreme Council, the Ibadhi Council, Tasmilt n Istain) are each denied formal recognition. The 2013 recognition of Tamazight is characterised as a "legal fiction" that grants symbolic status while preserving assimilationist control.
Arabization of Names
A multi-pronged naming regime. Amazigh personal names are banned for newborns and retroactively altered in civil registries; children with Amazigh names can be denied school enrolment. Place names are Arabized or replaced. Business names are barred, with banks and companies labelled "Arab."
The chapter links this to the Anemmeghro tradition, naming a child after a deceased relative, whose suppression severs the spiritual and emotional ties between generations. Arabization is coordinated by dedicated state bodies, including the National Center for Arabization and Translation (1992).
Demographic Changes
By defining the entire territory as the "Arab homeland," the state denies Amazigh ancestral lands and licenses demographic engineering: territorial annexation, administrative redrawing, Arab settlement, and resource reallocation that dispossesses Amazigh communities.
The report argues this ethnic labelling produces structural economic violence that falls hardest on Indigenous women, elders, and persons with disabilities who depend on state institutions for banking, employment, and services.
Leveraging Civic Organizations to Promote Arabization
Arabization is delivered through civil society. Sporting bodies and youth civic groups are enrolled in Arab-designated regional structures; Amazigh-majority cities such as Jadu and Zuwara are entered into the Arab Towns Organization, producing official international documentation that labels Indigenous cities as "Arab cities."
Arabization Via Education
Compulsory education mandates Arabic as the sole medium of instruction, with Tamazight excluded or offered only artificially. Curricula present the Arab conquest as something to be grateful for. Employment is then gated on Arabic fluency, and in some cases on not marrying non-Arab women.
The report flags a particularly acute harm: Amazigh children with disabilities, such as autism or visual impairment, are placed in specialised centres that mandate Arabic-only communication, effectively silencing them in their mother tongue.
Arabization Dynamics within Professional Sectors
To practise a profession, an Amazigh must join the relevant "Arab-labelled" association, of which the report counts more than seventy. Senior state leadership is effectively reserved for those demonstrating "Arabist" credentials, and newer barriers (such as Intelligence Authority marriage restrictions) extend the pattern.
Arabization and the Institutional Role of State Religion
Libya recognises Islam as the state religion but, explicitly and implicitly, only in its Maliki and Hanbali forms, excluding Ibadhi Islam, which in Libya is practised exclusively by Amazigh. The state has never recognised the Ibadhi faith, never offered Ibadhi religious classes, and made Maliki/Hanbali education compulsory.
Since 2011, fatwas have declared Ibadhis apostates and legally incompetent, questioning their capacity as witnesses and the validity of marriages they witness. Religion is also instrumentalised for Arabization abroad through the state's Islamic Call Organization, which promotes Arabic globally. The report frames this as amounting to religious genocide.
From documentation to recognition
The report's central demand is a constitutional framework that recognises the Amazigh as a distinct, Indigenous people with the full right to self-determination, and Libya's compliance with the obligations it has already signed. Its warning is that administrative erasure, left unaddressed, is often the precursor to physical destruction.
Explore every documented violation
Every entry below follows the report's own four-tier framework: the UNDRIP article, the right or state obligation at stake, the article's text, and how the State of Libya violated it. Search the database, or filter by chapter, article, and type.
These are article-by-article analyses, so the same right often recurs across several chapters. That is why the entry count here is higher than the headline totals above, which count distinct violations and breaches as stated in the report.