After doctors, engineers and other skilled professionals, today artists and others whose work is based in the cultural sector are leaving the country. A similar trend has developed across all disciplines, as dancers, actors, technicians, and musicians set out to pursue their careers overseas.
Barely a decade after the revolution of 2011 which was buoyed by a spirit of freedom, gains achieved in the media sector began to ebb with the power grab on July 25, 2021. As public and private media bend to the will of the regime and repression seeks to silence dissident voices, pockets of resistance among alternative and independent outlets constitute the last bastions of integrity in the field of journalism.
Some fifteen young people set out to sea from Zarzis. Only one survived. Despite the ever-growing death toll and the Europe-supported crackdown on departures, hundreds of Tunisians still dream of making the crossing.
Living within a few square meters, sharing a bed (when the opportunity presents itself), drinking, eating, and sleeping all in the same claustrophobic space, with no view other than the surrounding concrete walls. As Tunisia staggers through crippling heat, thousands of prisoners are serving a double sentence: prison time and the indecent conditions of their detention. Several suspicious deaths within the span of a few days reflect a reality in Tunisian prisons that the government has failed to come to terms with.
Relations between Tunisian Parliament and the government have never been so deleterious. The majority of ministers no longer attend debates. The President, for his part, has no qualms about treating his ministers with condescension and, when difficulties arise, tossing them to public condemnation. A scenario which reveals a rupture at every level of Tunisia’s decision-making infrastructure.
Tunisia. Four migrants. Cages in the desert, sales made to Libyan smugglers, sea wrecks provoked by authorities. For the first time, these abuses have been brought before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. A tribunal which Tunisia has taken great pains to make less accessible for the victims of human rights violations.
By granting Europe so many concessions that drain our land and water resources, the government contradicts its own rhetoric on sovereignty. The investigation detailed in this article describes the ravages of a “green” transition that is being rolled out in haste, and in the absence of transparency.
In Tunisia, the lights going out are no longer a temporary inconvenience but a visible symptom of failed governance. Rolling power cuts and water shortages are not just the result of extreme heat or aging infrastructure; they reflect years of underinvestment, distorted energy policies, and a political system that separated democratic procedure from material delivery. Tunisians traded freedom for the promise of decisive leadership and got neither. As electricity and water become privatized survival tools—tanks and generators for those who can afford them—inequality deepens. What has never been tried is a democracy answerable for both the vote and the tap, for freedom and the lights staying on.
Without legal status, school or healthcare, thousands of migrant children are growing up in the blindspot of the Tunisian government. Ever since the suspension of the right to asylum and under pressure of growing violence, the reality that these children face—begging, human trafficking, arbitrary detention, forced deportation to Algeria or Libya—is chilling.
After facing years of criticism regarding its brutal immigration management, the Tunisian government has found a new label for its mass expulsions: “voluntary return.” Behind this term borrowed from humanitarian aid, testimonies, data and international law tell an altogether different story.
Far from losing momentum, the protest movement which began in Gabes is breathing new life into social struggles in Tunisia. And continued repression in all of its forms is only making it grow stronger.
Why aren’t awareness campaigns for fishermen and citizens enough to stop the slaughter of sea turtles? How can legal frameworks be adapted to the broader environmental challenges in Tunisia today? Investigation.
Slim Marzoug was one of the first Black Tunisians to publicly raise the issue of anti-Black racism in Tunisia in the 1960s. And yet he has nearly been forgotten, his story never having been openly recounted. Nevertheless, the circumstances of his confrontation with authoritarian power are ever engraved in the memory of those who knew him.
Faced with a failing public health system that has caused the severe shortage of medications in Tunisia, young doctors and union activists are mobilizing and proposing solutions. But the authorities remain in denial, and citizens can no longer wait on the government to ensure their access to adequate healthcare.
Ultimate safeguard against the government’s arbitrary use of power, Tunisian judges have themselves fallen victim to authoritarianism. The combat led by Anas Hmaidi, president of the Association of Tunisian Magistrates that has been targeted by the current regime, marks a new era of resistance.
Conceived as a model to help society’s most vulnerable groups—including women, Tunisia’s law on social and solidarity economy has, in fact, had the opposite effect.
Women are the first victims of air pollution produced by the Tunisian Chemical Group in Gabes. Today, women of the region are at the forefront of an unprecedented social movement, fighting to ensure the future of their children and of generations to come. Special report.
In Tunisia, migrant women give birth in precarious conditions, exposing their newborns to illness and malnutrition. Accused of contributing to a so-called “demographic change” within the country, they face administrative obstacles, racism and poverty. Their survival depends largely on the charity and limited assistance of international organizations.
