Praised for its “feats” by Italy’s extreme right, the immigration policy implemented by President Kais Saied builds off a strategy whose objectives are twofold. Here is how the government has succeeded in killing two birds with one stone.
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Migration: The Wretched of the Borders
The Mediterranean is becoming a graveyard as Europe looks to outsource the management of its borders, dealing out bribes to countries at its southern and eastern gateways. Stripped of their humanity, migrants are reduced to grim statistics. Journalists within the network Independent Media on the Arab World present readers with a series of articles exposing the exorbitant price paid by concerned populations, against their will.
President Saied’s migration alibi paves way for repression
Civil society activists and employees arrested, UN organizations vilified, media outlets—including Nawaat—targeted. Once again, the country’s migration crisis serves as pretext for the ongoing witch hunt led by President Kais Saied to suppress the voices of regime critics.
From dignity to racial purity? Saied’s anti-“African” agenda
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.
Tunisia faces influx of Sudanese immigrants: Report in Lac 1
“Even dogs deserve a more decent life,” says a young Sudanese man, one of thousands who have arrived in Tunisia in the past months. In Tunis’ northern suburb of Lac 1, a makeshift camp has sprung up, a sprawl of sheet metal tents, tarps and used blankets spread across the ground. The contrast with the neighborhood’s ostentatious architecture is glaring.
The struggle is twofold for LGBT migrants in Tunisia
Fleeing persecution in their countries of origin, LGBT migrants set off in the hopes of finding safety elsewhere. During their journey across country borders, they are exposed to extreme violence, and sexual abuse in particular. Their ordeal continues when they arrive in Tunisia, where they are confronted with other forms of abuse. For these individuals, the future does not lie in Tunisia. But their safe passage to another country requires the support of the UNHCR.
Western aid to Tunisia fuels migration mismanagement, Refugees International report explains
A new report by Refugees International sheds light on the systematic human rights violations targeting refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Tunisia since the arbitrary expulsions carried out in July, and calls for Europe and the US to reconsider their funding—and fundamental approach—for managing migration across the Mediterranean.
Tunisian youth: Between instability and dreams of broader horizons
More and more, Tunisian youth are turning away from politics to focus on their personal trajectories. With the outlook grim for national salvation, young people are seeking out their own paths to individual salvation. What is the situation of these youth? What do they imagine for their future? Report.
EU-Tunisia: Why the Dutch were compelled to strike a deal with an autocrat
On July 16, the European Commission signed a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with Tunisia, granting the country millions of euros to prevent migrants and refugees from crossing the Mediterranean to seek shelter in Europe. But why did the Dutch prime minister play a pioneering role in the conclusion of the Tunisia deal, if only a small proportion of the migrants along this route travel on to the Netherlands? This analysis examines how the Dutch anti-migration policy became self-evident.
Work in Tunisia: Regularizing the status of undocumented immigrants
Although they are accused of stealing jobs from Tunisians, undocumented immigrants nevertheless respond to a labor shortage across a number sectors that are spurned by the local workforce. Regularizing the status of foreign workers in Tunisia would not only put an end to the scapegoating and forceful expulsion endured by immigrants, but would also stem the exploitation to which they are exposed.
The IMF and the West in Tunisia: Saied, a fish caught in the net?
The question is nothing short of provocative in light of the president’s ever nationalist discourse. But the facts remain. As it activates certain elements of policies recommended by the IMF, Carthage appears to be settling into place beneath the wing of its friends to the West.
Dreams and disillusionment: Tunisian migrants in Italy
Each year, thousands of Tunisians attempt the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in order to reach Italy. But dreams of an Italian promised land fall away as migrants are faced with a harsh reality. Once ashore, Tunisian workers enter into a life of precarity.
Selective Immigration: Tunisia loses its skilled workforce to broader horizons
Nurses, doctors, engineers, university students, restaurateurs…are leaving Tunisia in droves. The country is losing its skilled workforce to Europe and the Gulf countries, with no end to the exodus in sight.
Tunisia and Europe dive back into « readmission » for irregular migrants
Over the past month, Tunis has received visits from a number of European officials offering aid to the Saied regime in exchange for cooperation on migration issues. Their proposals all revolve around one prickly question: the return and readmission of Tunisian and foreign immigrants.
It’s not you, it’s them: the populist appeal of Kais Saied
President Kais Saied’s time in power has been anything but uneventful. However, his claims of speaking for ‘the people,’ his hatred of any institution that stands in his way and his endless conspiracies, which dominate the public conversation while the economy sinks, all have parallels. They’re there in Donald Trump, Hugo Chavez and even Silvio Berlusconi.
Diplomacy: Friends of Kais Saied’s Tunisia
Recent statements by high officials in the West—namely Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron—in addition to increased contact with Qatar are burying the aspirations to turn away from Tunisia’s traditional western allies, as proposed by supporters of the current regime. Close up on the geopolitics of president Kais Saied.
Migration: In El Faouar, climate change is pushing locals out
El Faouar, Kebili governorate: the lack of water, encroaching sand, plummeting revenues from date palm production, and inability to invest in lands in order to make them arable have put much of the local population in an impossible situation. With little or no hope left for the future, many locals are leaving El Faouar in search of new horizons.
Sub-Saharans in Tunisia: The untruths expounded by president Kais Saied
Tunisia’s president has accused civil society of fomenting the country’s colonization by undocumented migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Kais Saied denounces those who wish to « change the demographic composition » of Tunisia, evoking their « violence and criminality ». His proof? Contacted by Nawaat, the Interior Ministry affirmed that it does not have statistics regarding the number of migrants implicated in criminal activities. A glimpse at the facts exposes the president’s xenophobic fiction for what it is.
