Families call for Tunisia to release pro-migrant activists
Families of dozens of detained pro-migrant and anti-racist have called for their release from prisons in Tunisia.
As reported by The New Arab on March 19th, the activists have been imprisoned since May last year.
Those arrested included Sherifa Riahi who is the former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie and Mustapha Djemali who is the founder of the Tunisian Coucnil for Refugees and former North Africa chief of the UN’s refugee agency.
The daughters of Djemali told press that their father has lost 35 kilograms in prison and has been denied medication for “four to five months”.
The head of NGO FTDES Romadhane Ben Amor said that the detainees were “engaged in humanitarian work, not political advocacy” going on to add that the authorities had “criminalised their actions” and imprisoned them in order to make it appear as though president Kais Saied’s racist rhetoric is based on real facts.
He claimed that the aim of the Tunisian government was to “further weaken migrants and refugees and to push them to accept ‘voluntary returns organised by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM)’
Libya has recently engaged with the IOM in order to deport hundreds of migrants back to Nigeria, Bangladesh, Gambia and Mali.
Like Libya, Tunisia is a transit point for African migrants who have crossed the Sahara and are hoping to continue north to Europe across the Mediterranean.
However, Tunisian authorities have been adamant in their refusal to accept high-levels of migration.
Tunisian president Kais Saied described “hordes of sub-Saharan migrants” who he claims threaten to “change the country’s demographic composition”.
Since 2023, Saied begun cracking down on pro-migrant protests in Tunisia.
Concerns over the protection of the right to protest have been sparked by the fact that Saied has been increasingly aggressive in his crackdown on public protests in recent years.
As Maghrebi reported on 31st May 2024, hundreds of Tunisians refused to comply with Saied’s rule and stormed the capital chanting “down with the dictatorship”.
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