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.
The government has ignored all the warning signs. Now, rising water levels are threatening to submerge the archipelago of Kerkennah. Report.
As the CEDAW Committee prepares to examine the situation for women’s rights in Tunisia, feminists fear the Convention’s demise. In 2011, Tunisia withdrew its reserves regarding the CEDAW. A political decision that was not followed by legislative reform.
Presented as a crucial political moment, the December 17 legislative elections were supposed to be the final act of Tunisia’s state of exception which began on July 25, 2021. If nothing else, this affirmation deserves to be put into perspective.
Their names are Baya Zardi, Hanène Elleuch, Najla Ettounssia, Rania Toumi… What they share in common: a certain representation of beauty and knack for creating a buzz. And indeed, they devote themselves body and soul to this end—even when it sets them against other women.
« Tunisians residing abroad (TRE) have suffered a double penalty: first of all, the number of their representatives’ seats decreased from 18 to 10. Second of all, the requirement for obtaining 400 sponsors is absurd and unfair » says one candidate who did not make into the upcoming legislative elections. Indeed, the country’s new electoral law has clearly diminished TRE’s chances of benefiting from representation in parliament.
New figures quantifying the candidacies presented for Tunisia’s upcoming legislative elections are cause for concern. According to numbers reported by the Independent High Authority for Elections, equality between men and women is naught. Furthermore, not all Tunisians will necessarily benefit from parliamentary representation. And candidates’ visibility in the media is problematic, as coverage will be focused on individual runners not on electoral lists as usual.
Tunisia’s new agreement with the IMF is just two months away from becoming operational. The government, however, is far from being prepared to navigate what follows once it begins the precarious task of dismantling the subsidies system which covers basic goods and hydrocarbons. Rather than alleviating pressure on the country’s most vulnerable groups, it is likely to incite anger and indeed set off the social time bomb that it had hoped to disarm.
As Serbia expulses dozens of Tunisians from Belgrade, thousands of others are making their way towards Europe along the Balkan route. « I can count on one hand the number of them who are still here », says a sixty-something-year-old resident of a small village in the center of Djerba. Report.
Fishermen were the first to respond after families raised the alarm. Without any concrete action taken by authorities, fishermen set off in search of those who had disappeared at sea. Meanwhile, on land, resentment boils over in the city of Zarzis. Report.
Innawaation is a creative media projects incubator structured around a series of residencies and events. These collaborations will take place during sessions that span 3 to 6 months of work.
The new electoral law unilaterally decreed by president Kais Saied spurred outcry among women’s rights advocates in Tunisia. In protest of the new legislation, a feminist movement formed of nine associations staged a sit-in before the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE). As these activists voice demands for absolute parity between men and women in the public sphere, the president’s backwards approach to equality threatens to reverse women’s political gains.
Some 57 thousand sub-Saharan migrants are currently living in Tunisia, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). To make ends meet, many of them take on precarious, underpaid jobs as builders, servers and agricultural workers. This demographic of foreign workers has replaced a Tunisian workforce that has shown itself reluctant to such economic activities. In the meantime, Tunisian legislation has failed to address what is becoming a dire socio-economic dilemma, as the absence of clear policy leaves free rein to all sorts of abuses against migrant workers.
« It’s a sign of the Ministry’s shortcoming. The minister travels around with her staff and meets with governors, but doesn’t include the communes. The result? A handful of individuals cleaning up plastic » quips the president of the National Federation of Tunisian Communes (FNCT). « The initiative aims to instill a culture of environmentalism. A clean environment is a daily effort and lifelong commitment » retorts a ministry official.
Stretching across a distance of 1,300 kilometers, the Tunisian coastline is one of the country’s most treasured riches. And pollution threatens to destroy it. Every year, the Ministry of Health publishes a list of beaches where swimming is prohibited. The most obvious culprit is the National Sanitation Utility (ONAS). Water analyses indicate the presence of significant levels of fecal matter in the sea. But the government’s laissez-faire policies offer no incentive for industrial facilities to limit the pollutants they release into the environment.
24-year-old Lamin is from Sierra Leone. He has never tried to reach Europe and dreams of building his life in Tunisia, where he wants to start his own business. Although his situation is far from perfect in the absence of a legal work contract, Lamin reports that he takes everything in stride. Portrait.
For the past five years Abderrazzak Sibri hasn’t harvested a single olive from the 357 olive trees on his land in Sidi Mahmoud, a rural town in the province of Kairouan (central Tunisia). Sibri had planned to plant more olive trees, but lack of rain, several years of draughts and decreased ground water levels impacted production and changed his plans. “What bothers me most is that I have been investing in these trees,” he says. “When they finally reach the age in which they can produce regularly and abundantly, there is no more water to keep them growing.”
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.
