In the context of a Muslim and conservative culture, Tunisian male students, of all sexual orientations, experience bullying, ostracism, and social pressure to conform to the rigid image of masculinity. This qualitative study explores how men experience homophobia and toxic masculinity mainly in high school and middle school through a literature review and personal narratives interpreted together within the Tunisian and educational context.
What once seemed to present commuters with a convenient transportation option has started to add to rush hour frustration in Tunisia’s urban centers.
In a struggling rural neighborhood, a young teacher revolutionizes students’ classroom experience through film.
Gabes, a Tunisian coastal city, grapples with a stark dilemma: environmental preservation or economic stability. The phosphate industry, while providing jobs and revenue, has caused severe ecological damage and health issues. This conflict exemplifies the challenge of balancing development with environmental protection.
No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani reveals the brutality of Australia’s refugee policy and the atrocities of its detention industry. Omid Tofighian’s translation is not just a linguistic task but a collaborative, activist effort. His experimental approach and deep engagement with Boochani highlight the complexities and responsibilities of translating such a powerful narrative.
In a shocking display of President Kais Saied’s populist politics and anti-migrant crackdown, Tunisian police forcibly dismantled a protest camp of asylum seekers in Tunis early on May 3rd, expelling around 500 black migrants to the Algerian and Libyan borders without food or water. This brutal action underscores the Tunisian government’s increasingly explicit agenda of racial purification targeting sub-Saharan Africans, which human rights groups condemn as blatant anti-Black racism cloaked in anti-immigrant rhetoric.
An open letter from 379 researchers and members of civil society from the Global South and the Global North against the “Memorandum of Understanding on a Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership between the European Union (EU) and Tunisia” and against the EU’s border externalisation policies.
On 2 June 2022, three police officers in civilian clothes knocked on my door in the Bab Souika neighborhood of Tunis, and asked me to follow them to the local police station without providing any reason. Upon my arrival at the station, my Indian passport and the temporary residence permit (carte de séjour provisoire) that I had carried with me were taken away. I was informed that the subject of my summons was a tweet I had published the day before.
President Kais Saied marked National Women’s Day in Tunisia on August 13 by sending his wife to make a celebratory speech in which she sang her husband’s praises. That didn’t sit well with many Tunisians who reminded her that ‘first lady’ is not a recognized function in the country.
It’s complicated but, obviously, the last 11 years of Tunisian history have shown that we cannot have both leadership and democracy. Indeed, Tunisia’s own version of the so-called Arab spring has been mired in muddy uncertainties. The stark degradation of social values and unprecedented illiteracy rates can only be matched by the widespread corruption which rests upon successive government failures amplified by incompetence, and sustained by complacency and ignorance.
On July 4th, when we saw the first draft of the new constitution, I exonerated President Saied for such a calamity, putting the sole responsibility on the professors of constitutional law he had chosen. They were supposed to be the sources and the guarantors of the new constitution wanted by the head of state. After all, he had made us believe that he had entrusted them with the solemn mission of writing a “sacred” civil text that would guarantee Tunisia’s passage into an era of dignity and decency, in total rupture with ten years of catastrophic governance carried out by scavengers of politics, of all persuasions.
From freshwater fisheries in the great rift lakes to tuna fisheries in the waters around North Africa, for many African states, fisheries represent a substantial contribution to GDP. Due to imperfect knowledge of fish biology, incomplete fisheries data, natural variabilities and the inherent difficulties in using models to count fish in a population, the adoption of a different approach called “harvest strategies” or “management procedures” is becoming the latest innovation in fisheries management, and a reliable way for North African countries to continue to generate this blue growth value for decades to come.
A notable achievement since Tunisia’s adoption of law-58 on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 2017 is that it has broken the taboo on speaking about domestic violence. Yet, while spousal violence has received significant attention, it can be seen as representing the trees hiding the forest: family violence, and its multifaceted implications for women in their adulthood, remains a kind of family secret. It is time to shed light on this dimension of violence against women.
You take a walk by the seaside, thirsty for the Tunisian scenery and the beauty of the azure waves brushing the strands of beach sand. Instead, the first things your eyes catch are stray plastic cups, bags, straws, and the list goes on. Marine pollution in Tunisia has always been, but only became a red flag in the past few years when international NGOs started to loudly voice their concerns about the disastrous levels reached in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Halal meat will be banned starting from July 2021!!!” This message was issued by the Great Mosques of Paris, Lyon and Evry, which criticized the French government for banning the halal method of animal slaughter. The Islamic slaughter rite – like the Kosher one – prohibits stunning before death and requires the butcher to kill the animal by swiftly slitting its throat with a single slash to the neck. The announcement received massive media coverage and had a strong impact on the French Muslim minority.
On October 15, 2021, I was stopped at the Tunis airport and denied entry into Tunisia on the basis of the same piece of paper that the police in Bab Souika guaranteed as allowing me the liberty to enter and exit Tunisia – a carte de séjour provisoire [provisional residency card]. It had been a year since I had submitted my file demanding a carte de séjour; as an Indian citizen who needs a visa to enter Tunisia, I had hoped that this card would make my research in and on Tunisia easier.
I was on my treadmill exercising and watching Nicki Minaj “killing it” in one of her concerts when I saw a notification on my Facebook stating that Tunisian President Kais Saied had just nominated Ms. Najla Bouden as the new Head of Government. This would make her the first to hold such a high position in Tunisia as well as the first in the Arab world. I was excited for only a few seconds. As a Tunisian woman and a feminist who founded the association “Aswat Nisaa” to enhance women’s political participation and advocate for gender sensitive public policies, this should have been a celebratory moment! But it wasn’t for me. Why—I asked myself—am I being a joy-killer here? Am I being a “bad feminist ”?
In what seems to be a confusing set of legal opinions, a number of jurists in Tunisia and elsewhere were unable to converge decisively on qualifying the nature of President Kais Saied’s decision to suspend the Tunisian parliament and sack the government on July 25, 2021. Technically sound arguments seem to be made on all sides. Saied on his part, based his decision on article 80 of the Tunisian constitution which allows the President to take exceptional measures “in the event of imminent peril,” and one can very well argue that a Parliament and a government that let 18,000 Tunisians die of Covid 19 in a year and a half are a peril already in place.
