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London: A ship crewed by anti-Islam, anti-migrant activists dubbed the 'hipsters of the far right' is about to take to the Mediterranean on a mission to flout European law and send would-be refugees back to Libya.

The so-called 'Defend Europe' mission may put the lives of refugees at risk by impeding search and rescue ships, ananti-extremist group has warned.

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Generation Identity has crowdfunded $100,000 to crew a ship to stop refugees from entering Europe.

Defend Europe crowdfunded more than $100,000 to pay for its mission, which one of its backers said was partly inspired by an Australian government anti-immigration ad campaign.

"We want, as Australia did with its 'No Way'program, to close the deadly freeway that is the Mediterranean," said Clement Galant from Generation Identity, the youth wing of a French nationalist group, in an interview with the right-wing Minute magazine.

He was apparently referring to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection's $2-million-a-year 'No Way' anti-people-smuggling online ad campaign, which has run since 2014 and explains Australia's border control policy for foreign viewers.

"Every day thousands of Africans or Orientals pile up on makeshift boats to cross the Mediterranean. Every day, so-called 'humanitarian' organisations help them to reach Europe," Galant said.

"Facing the rising waves of the people of the south, Generation Identity decided to act."

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'Identitarians' from France, Germany, Austria and Italy are behind the Defend Europe project. They say they will monitor the actions of NGO rescue ships, and will return migrants from their boats back to Africa.

This is in spite of the principle of non-refoulement, which is part of EU law. The EU border agency Frontex considers Libya too dangerous to refugeesto legally send them back there.

Defend Europe's boat will join an increasingly chaotic scene in the south Mediterranean, where around a dozen search and rescue ships crewed by humanitarian NGOs have been accused of encouraging people smugglers, prompting Italian authorities to impose a new code of conduct for NGO rescues.

Around 85,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat in the first six months of 2017, 21 per cent more than in the same period in 2016.

More than 2200 people have died attempting the crossing this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

A European official familiar with the situation told Fairfax Media that last year rescues in the Mediterranean were closer to Italy, but now they were happening much closer to the border between Libyan and international waters.

Smugglers were "including the presence of NGO boats in their business model", they said, and putting migrants to sea in ever more overloaded and underequipped boats some even without engines.

"They expect [migrants]to be rescued by NGOs or commercial vessels or whoever else appears. They are taking advantage of the fact that every vessel that sees another in trouble has to rescue them.

"You have a rubber boat the size of a small van, they used to put 100 people on it, now they put on 150."

Defend Europe said its aim was to "overwatch the doings of the NGOs, disrupt the human trafficking rings and intervene when something illegal happens".

It intended to "expose the collaboration of NGOs and human traffickers", and if it received an SOS it would "save the people in distress and hand them over to the Libyan Coast Guard to make sure they are brought to the closest harbour, according to international law".

Fairfax Media attempted to contact Defend Europe but did not receive a reply.

Martin Sellner, from the group's Austria wing, told an alt-right YouTube blogger they "will become a recon vessel for the completely overwhelmed Libyan coastguard".

"We want to do everything in our power to bring [migrants]back to Africa we want to make a difference between rescuing people and smuggling them to Europe."

Their ship would have a "very powerful radar" and would intervene when they thought humanitarian NGO boats were doing something illegal.

"We will see what's going on there, how they are dealing with the human traffickers," Sellner said.

He said they weren't there to "engage in any sea battles" and stressed they would not "disturb or disrupt any real saving operation" and would "stick to all maritime laws".

However NGOs expect the group to try to impede their rescue operations.

In May, Defend Europe tried to block a Doctors Without Borders rescue vessel from leaving an Italian port.

A spokesman from anti-extremist group Hope Not Hate, which has been investigating Defend Europe and its backers, said they had "repeatedly talked of confronting NGOs, of blocking their ships".

"The identitarians come from a very obviously anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant standpoint, and have a history of direct action confrontations, including occupying mosques," the spokesman said.

"Although they may parade and cloak themselves with this 'far right hipster' mantle, something quite disturbing lies underneath their slick rhetoric, with mention of 'remigrating' people from Europe and claims to somehow deport people back to Libya in concert with the Libyan coastguard naive in the extreme, when different factions, militias and rival governments plus people smugglers actually control the coastline.

"Into this volatile mix, Defend Europe claims it will block, monitor, confront and perhaps even try and prevent NGO ships returning to Italy with refugees on board. This is a dangerous development, with obvious risk for harm to vessels, crew and those being picked out of the water. Will Defend Europe have doctors on board, for example?

"Whatever the rights and wrongs of the migration crisis, the actions of Defend Europe which have been supported by notorious far-right figures from around the world hardly help matters, and in fact potentially make them a damn sight worse."

Defend Europe raised money for its mission on WeSearchr, a crowdfunding site founded by alt-right journalist and activist Charles Johnson, who was banned from Twitter after calling for the "taking out" of a civil rights activist.

WeSearchr is used by far-right groups because other crowdfunding siteshave terms of service that forbid the funding of hate speech. For example neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormerused WeSearchr to raise funds to pay its legal fees. It takes a 15 per cent cut of all proceeds.

According to marine tracking data, the ship chartered by Defend Europe for its mission was approaching the Suez canal on Monday, on its way from Djibouti. It is due to arrive in Catania, Italy, later this week. The first members of its crew arrived in Catania on Monday.

Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins is also involved: she Tweeted she looked forward to meeting the crew in Catania and said the Mail Online would be covering them all this week. Hopkins caused outrage in 2015 when she said Europe should "do as the Australians do and send them back with gunships", and said migrants were like cockroaches.

Filip Dewinter from the far-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party has also said he will be on the boat. Dewinter is notorious in his home country for his links to neo-Nazis, and for describing his party as Islamophobic.

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