was subsequently suspended but not officially repudiated. Frattini had openly supported the policy of "respingimenti", contrary to the international humanitarian law principle of non-refoulement, describing such policy as a "due application of European rules", and stamping as "unworthy" the 2010 report by Amnesty International that highlighted the critical nature of this policy in light of international and European law. In September 2010, on the occasion of the second visit of Gaddafi to Rome, Frattini declared "We have blocked the trafficking of illegal immigrants", despite the figures showing the continuation of migratory flows, and despite being mainly people entitled to forms of international protection. In February 2011, in a set-up changed by the Arab spring uprisings, Frattini claimed to want to "mobilize the Mediterranean countries" and the EU, through the Frontex agency, for patrols and refoulements. However following the fall of the governments of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Gaddafi in Libya, the number of migrants attempting to reach Italy and Europe surged. Italy's response to these migrants has been criticized by organizations including Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The European Court of Human Rights, in the Hirsi v. Italy ruling of 23 February 2012, condemned Italy for breach of the convention, in particular with regard to Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 4 of Protocol IV (prohibition of collective expulsions); in this case, 200 Somali and Eritrean migrants had been rejected in Libya under the Benghazi agreement, without having the possibility of applying for asylum in Europe. Foreign policy The reaction of Italian diplomacy, led by Frattini, to the revolts of the Arab spring and the Libyan civil war was defined as "reactive" and "unrealistic" by the ISPI-IAI 2012 report edited by Alessandro Colombo and Ettore Greco. Like other Western countries, Italy was completely taken aback by the Arab uprisings, and after a first moment at a loss for words it tried to frame the phenomenon in the reassuring discourse of democratization, reassured by the absence of Islamist symbols or anti-Western slogans. If the initial hesitations and the abrupt U-turn on the Qaddafi regime can constitute an element in common with other countries, Italy is the only international actor who long sought to "cling to its own imaginary role of mediator ", for which however lacked both power and necessary authority. With the evolution of the