Tunisia’s sugar-coated freedom of expression and assembly is once again exposed in the events of May 2024, when Tunisian authorities arrest and accuse a group of human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists of treason for their public and solid expression about Tunisia’s politics as well as their ongoing commitment to defending Sub-Saharan migrants’ rights in the country.
This is the same country that had rebelled against the Tunisian oppressive regime despite the violent reactions to peaceful protests and the same country that had initiated the inspirational Arab Spring movement in 2011 based on values such as democratic participation, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly to escape decades of repression and injustice. However, it is also the same country that started a wave of social discrimination and racist behavior against Sub-Saharan migrants in 2023, leading up to the authorities’ recent restrictions and suppression of social movements’ protests and campaigns advocating for their rights.
Tunisia’s position with migration flows from Sub-Saharan Africa
In February 2023, Tunisian President Kais Saied published a statement shortly after a meeting with the government’s security officials regarding the rule of law with Sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia. The statement addressed new severe measures against migrants who lack valid legal documentation justifying their stays in Tunisia, including forced deportation, arbitrary arrests, and other severe procedures by the law authorities. The president’s speech claiming that Sub-saharan migrants are part of a conspiracy plan towards the country’s demographic composition has been condemned as a racist hate speech by the African Union (AU), members of the Tunisian civil society and several world leaders, especially those of other African nations expressing their disappointment in the government.
The procedures implemented by President Saied and his government were swiftly put into place. At least 3500 migrants were arrested in the first half of 2023 for ‘irregularly’ staying in Tunisia, as reported by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), while 1000 migrants were deported per day during the first week of July 2023 either directly to their countries of origins through evacuation plans or indirectly at the Algerian or Libyan borders.
Following the fluctuating events of February 2023, the migration flow from Tunisia to Italy across the Mediterranean witnessed a 123% increase over the interceptions in 2022, reaching at least 70,000 migrants and refugees, of whom around 78% were foreigners, according to the Mixed Migration Centre report. Consequently, the drowning incidents, missing people, and death tolls of Sub-saharan migrants irregularly crossing the Tunisian borders through the Mediterranean Sea have also increased rapidly in the same year, reaching 1000 in the first four months of the year alone.
Not only have the affected migrants suffered violent and harsh treatment from the authorities in either arbitrary detention or deportation processes in inhumane conditions, but also violent racist attacks, xenophobic behavior, and discrimination in access to services by Tunisian nationals targeting black migrants, refugees, and at some point even black Tunisians.
All of these human rights violations and unjust treatment have evidently compelled social and activist movements in the country fighting for migrants’ human rights and ending racism to speak out and speak louder against both the government’s actions and the xenophobic reactions and behavior exhibited by some Tunisians. Hundreds of people, including activists and supporting movements, started protesting against anti-migrant racism in the spring of 2023 to condemn Kais Saied’s speech, the actions taken by the authorities based on it, and the waves of racist attacks and discrimination against Sub-saharan migrants and black Tunisians.
Civil society actors under ongoing suppression and criminalization challenges
These protests put enough pressure on the government to respond with denial of racism and human rights violations accusations as all movements were supported by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). As a result, this reflects the power that the international community’s interference can give to peaceful assembly initiatives in order to advance human rights and influence relevant policy at the same time, defying all other governmental approaches in Tunisia since 2023 that have created a wide gap between security and human rights and a thin line between treason and freedom of expression. With this support and a clear vision, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and campaigns continued without severe interventions from the police or disruptions, allowing for the voices to be heard at a global level.
However, the little freedom allowed for the Tunisian civil society during that critical period came to an end a year later when Tunisian authorities, once again, acted on Kais Saied’s instructions in spring 2024. On May 8th, 2024, police officers arrested Saadia Mosbah, the anti-racism activist, migrants’ rights defender, and leader of the social & racial justice movement “Mnemty” which was one of the key activist groups participating in this range of peaceful assemblies for the BLM advocacy campaigns in 2023.
During the same week, arrests also took place of the president and vice-president of the Tunisian Council for Refugees, an NGO working closely with the UNHCR Tunisia to provide the necessary services and support for refugees and asylum seekers in addition to the arrest of the ex-president of Terre d’Asile, an activist organization of French origins, providing social and legal assistance for migrants and refugees and running awareness campaigns of their rights.
The charges against these organizations’ leaders claimed by the Tunisian authorities were mainly associated with the basic law issued in August 2015. They included obstruction to justice and the country’s security with regard to providing entry access, support, and aid to ‘irregular migrants’ as opposed to the restrictive legal measures of 2023, along with suspicions of illicit funding sources, financial fraud, and attempts to interfere with state laws and decisions.
The repressive measures taken by the Tunisian government and police, shown in these recent arrests, followed specific patterns in their choice of the organizations criminalized, which could transform into a strategic example of similar regimes in the MENA region. These patterns consist of their strong commitment to delivering aid to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, their devotion to social and racial justice, their plain dependency on international funding sources for continuity, and their history of collaborations with the state, ministries, and the UNHCR, making them first, more compliant than other politically critical organizations and second, less resistant to the arrests.
In a sensitive democracy such as Tunisia’s since July 2021, when the president dissolved the parliament and the government, seizing all powers for other motives of combatting treason, the events of May 2024 have shown tendencies to be a strategic move of undermining the civil society’s freedoms and expressive character months before the next presidential elections. In fact, these arrests happened only two days after President Kais Saied confirmed in the National Security Council meeting that the country had recently coordinated with Algeria and Libya a complete deportation procedure for 400 migrants. These consecutive actions not only affected migrants across the nation and members of these organizations but also intimidated social movements following their steps and advocacy plans. Therefore, they were daunted by the obliteration attempts.
Freedom of expression and activism, censored by law authorities
Despite the gravity of the arrest warrants issued against Mosbah and NGO leaders, the wave of repression was not limited to activists and human rights defenders. More arrest warrants were issued in the following days and weeks, particularly with charges related to the Decree-law N°54 issued in September 2022 that are associated with severe penalties and time in prison. This has slowly led civil society actors to believe that the Tunisian laws utilized by the authorities to support this series of events have become tools for a criminalization strategy that penalizes freedom of expression and treats humanitarian aid responses as unlawful.
Article 24 of this Decree-Law has ambiguous definitions and a thin line of implications between freedom of expression and treason, which determined the fate of Sonia Dahmani, a renowned lawyer known for her public and explicit expression of opinion and one of the prominent personalities speaking critically on public media platforms about Kais Saied’s government and relevant political decisions, including the anti-migrants approach adopted in the past year. She spoke on national television the day after the arrest of anti-racism activist Saadia Mosbah and described Tunisia as a “non-pleasant” country for migrants even wanting to settle and live in as claimed by the president regarding the demographic conspiracy.
In only a matter of days, Sonia Dahmani and a group of lawyers and journalists were arrested by masked police who had forcibly entered the Tunisian Bar Association’s headquarters on May 11th and accused them of spreading “false information,” threatening “public safety” and encouraging “hate speech” against the government, as stated under the Decree Law N°54 and in their arrest warrants.
Social movements and peaceful assembly in Tunisia’s fragile freedoms and democracy
Putting key civil society actors fighting for social and political justice behind bars, including inspiring women leaders in the community, has only urged more human rights & freedom movements to address these acts of repression as seriously as possible. This started with the BLM campaigns, the CSOs’ and Tunisian Press Council’s demonstrations and eventually the nation-wide strike of lawyers on behalf of the Tunisian Bar Association for the repeated abuse of Decree-Law N°54. This movement has unified lawyers, journalists, and activists to fight for the exact same cause, which accentuated the value of collective and peaceful public gatherings in the name of transparent and supervised rule of law practices and, most importantly, justice for all.
Nevertheless, the suppression of non-governmental organizations dedicating their efforts and resources to defending the rights of marginalized groups in the Tunisian community, such as migrants and refugees is still the equivalent of throwing away years of achieving fair and equal democratic participation. If the current government believes that opting for violence, arbitrary arrests, and hindering civil society would eventually reduce migration flows, make the country ‘secure’ in their own definition, and protect the political reputation of this term’s presidency, it is only reasonable to say that its actions are what’s proving it wrong since arrival flows have risen higher than ever in 2023. This was especially true after April 2023 when the war broke out in Sudan, and the FTDES’s migration study showed that Sudanese people represent the highest number of arrivals to Tunisia. It was also the quick and persistent intervention of civil society and human rights defenders, both locally and globally, that brought this misconduct to light. Still, there is only so much these actors can do and protest to make change without taking the evident risks of criminalization, civic, democratic, and human rights violations, or indirectly damaging the sustainability of civil society organizations and the security of Sub-Saharan migrants further.
In the fragile political and migration contexts of the nation, and with the new presidential elections coming up in October 2024, Tunisia is susceptible to major power and rule of law dynamics, particularly on how the civil society is expected to operate onwards or on the European Union’s in-progress borders’ externalization strategies and relevant migration policies contributing to it. In the new presidential term, it is crucial that when advocating for racial, social, and political justice, civil society movements and activists take into account foreign policies affecting the country’s politics, including migration and security policies, as well as any emerging gaps for potential misconduct of the rule of law or other types of power abuse.
Intersectionality in peaceful assembly: The case of Tunisia’s civil society
After having had a bar association, media platforms, and civil society organizations affected by the limitations of freedom of expression in the country, future peaceful gatherings and demonstrations in Tunisia should undoubtedly highlight the element of intersectionality in their advocacy and resistance plans to the witnessed repression. Multiple key considerations of intersectionality for the movements that are behind peaceful assemblies but enduring censorship and criminalization should be taken into account, in Tunisia and other countries manifesting similar contexts.
Firstly, the relationship between media freedom and independence with the concept of digital rights. This includes freedom of expression and data sources’ protection from different uses for political gains because although Decree Law N°54 was brought to light in 2022 for the purpose of digital rights protection and cybersecurity, it has been serving the government for different motives and jeopardizing the privacy of some activists. On another note, unfairly employing laws and penalties for political rather than judicial purposes has exposed the vulnerable aspects of the rule of law in Tunisia and its limitations, which are exploited for criminalization functions to political agendas and require extensive reviews and revisions.
Moreover, women’s rights have been just as affected in the recent repression era, including not only the Sub-Saharan migrants and refugees but also some of the most trusted activists, lawyers, and journalists in the community. This has made their active participation in civil society more obstructed, frustrating, and less valued by the government, hence the need for social movements, regardless of their cause, to constantly draw attention to women’s significant role in leadership and in politics and emphasize on more engagement and inclusion of women in policy-making, migrants and refugees included.
In addition to all these means of socio-political reforms, redefining fundamental terms such as peace, security, or democracy and maintaining and spreading awareness about both Tunisians’ and Sub-Saharan Africans’ rights to freedom and justice remains under civil society actors’ many responsibilities. In a nutshell, the next socio-political phase of Tunisia represents the civil society’s most pressing times of resistance and active resilience by accentuating intersectionality, unmasking the facade, and challenging the status-quo as the country’s catalysts for change.
