Fear reigns in Tunisia as repression intensifies

 A protest, demanding the release of imprisoned journalists, activists, opposition figures and setting a date for fair presidential elections in Tunis, 

Arrests have stepped up since late April, affecting both anti-racist activists and media personalities. In his crusade against elites, President Kais Saied has even had the Tunisian Swimming Federation president and the anti-doping agency head arrested.

Repression has intensified in recent weeks in Tunisia, targeting sub-Saharan migrants, NGOs, journalists, civil servants and lawyers. The crackdown began at the end of April, with operations to dismantle temporary settlements of sub-Saharan migrants near Sfax, the country’s second-largest city. On May 3, security measures were extended to Tunis, where a migrant camp set up opposite the headquarters of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was forcibly cleared.

President Kais Saied justified the operations at a security council meeting on Monday, May 6, saying that “400 people” – men, women and children – had been moved to the “eastern border,” which neighbors Libya. In the same speech, he criticized NGOs helping migrants, accusing them of receiving “huge sums of money from abroad” and calling their leaders “traitors” and “agents.”

After the speech, the repression was almost immediate. Saadia Mosbah, an anti-racist activist and president of the Mnemty association, which fights racial discrimination in Tunisia, was arrested the same day and placed in police custody under the country’s anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering act. 

The European Union said on Tuesday it was concerned about the wave of arrests of many civil society figures, journalists and political activists, and demanded clarifications from Tunisia as the North African country faces a growing political crisis.

“Freedoms of expression and association, as well as the independence of the judiciary, are guaranteed by the Tunisian Constitution and constitute the basis of our partnership,” the EU said in statement.

U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel responded that the raids were “inconsistent with what we think are universal rights that are explicitly guaranteed in the Tunisian constitution and we have been clear about at all levels.”

Why are migrants to Europe fleeing from and through Tunisia?

“Everyone is suffering from an economic crisis and all the youth want to leave — with or without papers.”

The once bustling cafes in Tataouine, a remote desert town in southern Tunisia, are full of empty chairs. Their dwindling patrons, mostly young men, spend long afternoons sipping coffee or tea as they scroll idly through their phones, watch football or play cards. Many of these men are biding their time to clandestinely leave their home for western Europe, primarily France, Italy or Germany, following in the footsteps of tens of thousands of their compatriots who are already there.

While most Tunisian irregular migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea via makeshift boats or dinghies — a perilous journey that claimed more than 500 lives in 2022 — those from Tataouine take another approach: the “Balkan Route,” a carefully constructed smuggling line that runs from Turkey to Europe’s visa-free Schengen territory. The route, viewed as a safer alternative to sea crossings, is gaining popularity in other Tunisian regions, too — from January to October 2022, an estimated 15,000 Tunisians took this long trek, quadruple that of the previous year

On Nov. 10, 2022, Serbia, a crucial stop on the route, ended visa-free entry for Tunisians and Burundis, reversing a policy that had previously provided citizens of these countries much closer proximity to Europe’s Schengen territory.

Serbia’s reversal of its visa policy for Tunisians had an immediate impact on this transit route. In November 2022, the month Serbia’s new policy went into effect, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, recorded a big drop in Tunisians intercepted along the Balkan Route, counting just 137 compared to 406 the month prior.

While smugglers are already reacting to the policy, promising new routes to their followers on social media, it is unclear how migration trends will evolve. However they do, it is clear that demand for smuggling services will remain — and determined migrants will continue to find ways to reach western Europe, even if at a higher risk. 

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/01/tunisias-migrants-face-new-roadblock-popular-smuggling-route-europe#ixzz85GF4YG1D

Soumaya Ghannoushi : Tunisia was the hope of the Arab spring. Now my father could face the death penalty for his words

The president, Kais Saied, has turned our country into a dictatorship, while Europe looks the other way

“Since the era of the Arab spring, which in Tunisia saw Ben Ali deposed, the country has resisted the dark fates of its sisters such as Egypt, Yemen, Libya or Syria. Democratisation seemed to be in train. But no longer – as the experience of my 81-year-old father, Rached Ghannouchi, attests.

My father, the leader of the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha and the former elected speaker of Tunisia’s parliament, was arrested in April, as the family prepared to break its fast at the end of Ramadan. About 100 security officers raided our home. My sister says my father was taken to a military barrack, where he spent almost 48 hours, waiting to be allowed access to his lawyers, before he was charged with “conspiring against state security”.

Kais Saied, a relatively unknown assistant university lecturer, was in 2019 voted president, using pro-revolutionary and ultra-conservative rhetoric. But as soon as he set foot in the presidential Carthage palace, he pulled up the democratic ladder upon which he had climbed to power. In 2021, he barricaded parliament with military vehicles and started running the country through presidential decrees, before dissolving the legislature in 2022. He moved to overthrow the constitution, writing his own instead, which was passed after a referendum with a 30% turnout, giving him immense power over his subjects’ bodies and souls.

After his de facto coup, Saied directed his firepower at two targets: judges and the security services. He dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council, appointing his own, and dismissed 57 judges by a single presidential decree, accusing them of corruption.

Saied also restored Ben Ali’s old legacy in the security apparatus, reversing post-revolution reforms aimed at curbing police brutality. This is how he prepared the ground for the current crackdown against dissidents. The targets include not only political leaders of all tendencies, but civil society activists, journalists, solicitors, even people simply writing critical Facebook posts.

Opponents are called everything from “enemies” to “cancer cells”. The list grows by the day, from “agents of foreign powers” to vulnerable African migrants accused of being part of a conspiracy to change the country’s demography, echoing the far-right “great replacement” theory.

Tunisia has turned from a fragile democracy into a country resembling a full-fledged dictatorship. It is a cocktail of failures, robbed of its hard-won freedoms, and thrust into a deep economic crisis. People stand in long queues every day, hoping to get bread, some sugar, flour or oil.” Soumaya Ghannoushi (British-Tunisian writer and researcher specialising in the Middle East and north Africa)

Tunisian authorities downplay significance of Djerba synagogue attack

The attack of May 9 near the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, in which two Jewish pilgrims and three members of the Tunisian security forces were killed

Tunisian President Kais Saied has denied that the attack of May 9 was anti-Semitic. Authorities have sought to downplay its wider significance, in a statement lacking transparency.

“They speak of anti-Semitism, while the Jews were protected here,” he said on Saturday, May 13 during a visit to Ariana, a suburb of Tunis, in reference to the German-Italian occupation of Tunisia during the Second World War, from November 1942 to May 1943.

He also criticized what he called double standards in international reactions, which he said talk of an anti-Semitic attack while “Palestinians are killed every day and no one talks about them”. He did not specify the nature of the link between these two events

A coalition of over 20 non-Jewish Tunisian rights organizations immediately issued a statement that, without mentioning Saied by name, denounced what they said was “a formidable confusion between defense of the Palestinian cause and antisemitism” in Tunisian discourse.

“The undersigned associations denounce the poor management of the crisis, which has been characterized by censorship and misinformation, the minimization of the seriousness of the operation and the primacy given to its economic impact,” wrote the coalition, which includes groups such as The Tunisian Association for the Support of Minorities and the M’nemty anti-racism organization. “Ignoring its terrorist dimension, it is described as only a ‘criminal operation’ likely to ‘deal a blow to the tourist season, sow discord and bring down the state.’”

https://jweekly.com/2023/05/16/days-after-synagogue-attack-tunisian-president-downplays-antisemitism-criticizes-israel/

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12 years ago : the Tunisian revolution

The Tunisian Revolution, also called the Jasmine Revolution, was an intensive 28-day campaign of civil resistance. It included a series of street demonstrations which took place in Tunisia, and led to the ousting of longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. It eventually led to a thorough democratisation of the country and to free and democratic elections.

The protests were sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on 17 December 2010. They led to the ousting of Ben Ali on 14 January 2011, when he officially resigned after fleeing to Saudi Arabia, ending his 23 years in power. Labor unions were an integral part of the protests. The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for “its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011”. The protests inspired similar actions throughout the Arab world, in a chain reaction which became known as the Arab Springmovement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_Revolution

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Tunisia’s election: The beginning of the end for Saeid ?

Tunisia has been plunged into political uncertainty after it recorded the lowest electoral turnout in its recent history following President Kais Saied’s suspension of parliament and subsequent redrawing of the country’s political map.

Its main opposition alliance called on Saied to “leave immediately” as voters overwhelmingly snubbed the legislative election in what officials at the country’s Instance Supérieure Indépendante pour les Élections (ISIE) said was a participation rate of 8.8%.

Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, president of Tunisia’s “Salvation Front” alliance, which boycotted the vote and has accused Saied of a coup against Tunisia’s democracy said the president had “lost all legal legitimacy”. An abstention rate of more than 91% “shows that very, very few Tunisians support Kais Saied’s approach”, Chebbi told Agence France-Presse

The refusal by most Tunisians to participate in the election should not in any way be perceived as voter apathy. Tunisians are still as interested in the future of their country as they have ever been. They had no enthusiasm for this vote because they knew from the very beginning that its outcome would not help better the grave economic and social conditions they are living in.

What makes things even worse for Saied and his cronies is that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has postponed its authorisation for an urgently needed $1.9bn loan from December 2022 to at least January 2023. This delay amid a gaping deficit and a deepening cost of living crisis will undoubtedly worsen the economic struggles of Tunisians and make their situation even less tolerable. Together with the gradual abolition of bread subsidies and the plans for other substantial public spending cuts, this delay in IMF funding could result in an uprising

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/19/tunisias-election-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-saeid

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Campaign of arbitrary arrests in Tunisia

Rania Amdouni, is a Tunisian rights defender and prominent LGBTQ rights activist.

A recent campaign of arbitrary arrests has affected many tunisian citizens :

– arbitrary and systematic arrests of many activists related to demonstrations

– attacks, threats and harassment committed by security agents on the ground and on social networks

– the arbitrary arrest and malicious trial against the activist Rania Al-Amdouni.

– the death of the young Salim El-Zayan in the detention centre of Sfax

https://timep.org/explainers/the-crackdown-against-tunisias-lgbtqi-community/

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Tunisian president ousts government in move critics call a coup

Tunisia’s president dismissed the government and froze parliament in a dramatic escalation of a political crisis that his opponents labelled a coup, calling their own supporters to come onto the streets in protest.

President Kais Saied said he would assume executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister, in the biggest challenge yet to the democratic system Tunisia introduced in a 2011 revolution.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/tunisian-president-relieves-prime-minister-his-post-2021-07-25/

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Tunisian court sentences blogger to six months in prison for reposting joke written in Koranic style

Emna Charki

https://lejournaldupeintre2.wordpress.com/

 

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