Tunisia must break free from reliance on short-term economic fixes

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

Tunis’ political decision to mobilise resources for escalating expenditures without addressing the need to curb spending, downsize the government, and reduce the state’s economic footprint is a looming disaster, Sadok Rouai writes.

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Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed recently declared that central bank autonomy should not equate to independence from the state. 

Saïed insisted that autonomy applies to monetary policy but not the financing of the state budget. This comes in the wake of the recent postponement of the IMF mission to discuss the monetary fund’s deal for Tunisia.

President’s declaration against the Central Bank’s autonomy has marked the apex of a series of assaults on its sovereignty, aimed at overturning Article 25 of its current statute which prohibits direct financing of the state budget. 

The bank’s governor, Marouane El Abassi, had previously warned that central bank financing of the budget would spike inflation uncontrollably and replicate the Venezuelan scenario in the country.

But what motives underlie Saïed’s unsettling efforts to overturn Article 25?

Populist rejection to consolidate one-man rule

More than a year has passed since Tunisia inked a $1.9 billion (€1.73bn) preliminary agreement with the IMF, led by then-Head of Government Najla Bouden’s economic team on 15 October 2022. 

The agreement targeted financial imbalances through measures like cutting untargeted subsidies, trimming the public sector wage bill, and reforming loss-making public enterprises.

Saïed’s populist rejection of the IMF deal, citing it as a tool of Western imperialism, follows his moves to consolidate one-man rule since September 2021. 

Governing Tunisia unilaterally through decrees, bypassing the constitution, and suppressing critics, Saïed has overseen a worsening economic crisis marked by growing poverty, essential item shortages, and soaring prices. 

He considers that implementing IMF reforms could trigger protests, posing a challenge to his political control.

The commitment to implement crucial reforms for the finalisation of the IMF deal has therefore been long delayed. 

This resistance escalated further with Saïed’s recent sacking of the minister of economy and planning, who had spearheaded the IMF negotiations and remained committed to the implementation of the agreed reforms.

A quick fix won’t do

In the interim, faced with limited access to foreign financing, the authorities have heavily leaned on local funding, particularly from the banking system. 

They accumulated arrears with both foreign and local suppliers. Tunisia thus experienced a significant decline in imports and distribution of subsidized commodities, leading to frequent shortages.

Local banks face a capacity limit to finance the state budget, prompting calls to push the Central Bank to do so. This is a red alert — Tunisia must break free from reliance on short-term fixes at this perilous juncture.

Bilateral donors must vigorously support systemic economic reforms and Central Bank sovereignty within an IMF deal. There’s no alternative path for Tunisia’s economic future.

Advocates proposing amendments to the Central Bank’s statute argue that reintroducing direct budget financing if within legal limits, would be sustainable and minimally impact inflation. 

They contend that such financing would eliminate intermediation costs imposed by the banking system. 

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However, this perspective overlooks the risk of potential abuses and misuse of the law, offering a convenient yet temporary solution for the government. 

The political decision to mobilise resources for escalating expenditures without addressing the need to curb spending, downsize the government, and reduce the state’s economic footprint is a looming disaster.

History does repeat itself

Tunisia’s own economic history should serve as a cautionary tale against compromising the Central Bank’s independence. 

In the early 1980s, populist economic mismanagement led to a surge in the budget deficit from 2.8% of GDP in 1980 to 8.1% in 1983. 

Much as what we are witnessing today again in the country, the state favoured convenient shortcuts over the necessary but challenging structural reforms.

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Starting in 1982, Tunisia’s then-minister of finance and planning asked the Central Bank Governor to execute a series of accounting transactions that would provide direct financing to the Treasury beyond the confines of the budget. These transactions amounted to 5.8% of the GDP at the end of 1983.

By the late 1980s, this approach proved short-sighted and a failure, and Tunisia in the end had to resort to the IMF for assistance in addressing its financial imbalances.

Despite initial efforts to safeguard the Central Bank’s independence, there has been ongoing interference, marked by a high turnover of governors prematurely relieved of their duties. Initially stable with three governors serving for 22 years from its establishment in 1958 until the 1980s, subsequent appointments — excluding the current one — have seen seven out of ten governors removed prematurely due to political considerations.

Tunisia’s government has to see the light

Bilateral donors must underscore the imperative of preserving the independence of the Tunisian Central Bank and advancing its modernisation, alongside crucial negotiations for an IMF deal. 

The prohibition on direct Central Bank financing to the budget has been in place since 2006. For Tunisia to move backwards and invoke policies that proved to be clear failures in the 80s, is to send the country’s fragile economy reeling into freefall.

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Tunisia’s Central Bank has made notable progress in transparency, but further improvements are needed. 

These include preventing government representatives from joining its Board and establishing clear criteria for the appointment and dismissal of its governor and directors, adhering to legal deadlines for annual report publication, engaging external experts for policy evaluations (as seen in successful initiatives in England, Australia, Ireland, Chile, Spain, and elsewhere), making archives accessible to researchers, and announcing significant decisions through press conferences.

The inevitability of structural economic reforms in Tunisia today is crystal clear. 

As the country’s parliament just recently adopted the 2024 budget, the timing of this discourse is opportune. Bilateral donors and multilateral institutions must persist in encouraging Tunisia to engage in meaningful negotiations with the IMF and to safeguard the independence of its institutions. 

Tunisia’s economic future hangs on it. 

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Sadok Rouai is a former Senior Advisor to the Executive Director of the IMF and former Head of the Banking Supervision Department at Tunisia’s Central Bank.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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How to fix Tunisia’s economic misery with a fair and bold IMF program

Economic reforms are inherently political, but they should be designed to address the concerns and aspirations of the population impacted by them, Timothy Kaldas and Ayoub Menzli write.

As the pressure mounts to break the deadlock over Tunisia’s next IMF program, a number of international actors are rushing to find ways to get a deal signed. 

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At the behest of Italy’s government, the European Commission has committed what is likely to be a no-strings-attached €100 million to support fighting migration. The commission also announced €900m in additional financing for Tunisia should an IMF deal be approved. 

However, the IMF deal in its current form appears to be a non-starter for Tunisia’s President, Kais Saied.

Tunisia’s existing Staff Level Agreement (SLA) with the IMF appears to cling to a tried, tested and failed formula of deep cuts and consumption taxes that could fuel inflation, expand poverty and hamper growth. Rejecting a repeat of regressive anti-growth prescriptions was prudent.

Recent IMF programs in Tunisia failed, in part, because they were politically unsustainable. Austerity measures that disproportionately target the general population while often insulating elites were repeatedly rejected by the public. 

Tunisians pressured their leaders to derail planned reforms following the 2013 and 2016 IMF programs in Tunisia. 

Repeating this cycle a third time with a similar program is sure to be met with public rejection. So, a new approach is needed.

A more progressive fiscal policy is at the core of the issue

Tunisian civil society has been long advocating for more progressive fiscal policy that includes directing their efforts toward increasing state capacity to collect revenue and it’s time Tunisian authorities and international financial institutions start listening. 

Al Bawsala, a leading Tunisian civil society organisation, has been advocating for measures that include restoring the progressivity of the income tax system, investing in the tax collection authority’s capacity, and reducing tax exemptions afforded to large corporations which according to the Tunisian Ministry of Finance reached $1 billion (€915m) or over half of the amount of the newly proposed IMF program.

An analysis conducted by the Tunisian Observatory of the Economy uncovered a sharp decline in the share of direct tax revenue from corporate taxes following cuts to the corporate rate in 2015 and 2021. 

The share of direct tax revenue from corporate taxes dropped to 28% between 2015 and 2020, while income tax’s share of direct tax revenue rose to 72%. 

The trend continued in 2021 when the corporate tax was further reduced to 15%. Moreover, the cuts to corporate taxes didn’t spur investment. The investment rate declined following the cuts.

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Counter-productive measures to create fiscal space simply don’t work

The new reform program should avoid cuts to essential food subsidies, which would increase poverty and food insecurity according to Tunisian experts. 

Tunisia’s economic reforms can focus on shifting the burden upwards onto the country’s upper middle and upper classes by investing in the state’s capacity to collect progressive sources of tax revenue while eliminating long-abused tax loopholes. 

A more progressive program isn’t just more socially just and more likely to secure public buy-in, it’s better economics.

Whether proposed by IMF staff or, more likely Tunisian officials, relying heavily on VAT, other taxes on consumption and aggressive subsidy cuts is bad policy for several reasons. 

These measures are counter-productive efforts to create fiscal space. Increasing the cost of goods through both regressive taxes and removal of subsidies intensifies already elevated levels of inflation. 

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Increased levels of inflation place pressure on the central bank to increase interest rates. However, higher interest rates contribute to higher government expenditures on servicing debt which can consume much of the revenue the state was meant to take in.

Additionally, inflationary measures like VAT and subsidy cuts depress domestic demand which will weaken incentives to invest for local businesses. 

Increasingly, it’s clear that cuts to food subsidies represent an untenable assault on Tunisia’s safety net. 

Another potential source of revenue can be secured by rolling back previous tax cuts for large corporations. These cuts, which protect the monopolies and cartels controlled by Tunisian economic elites and oligarchs, have three damaging consequences.

It’s time to address the illicit influence of Tunisia’s oligarchs

First, it deprives the state of revenue without encouraging investment because monopolists don’t have an incentive to invest. 

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Second, reduced revenue weakens the state’s ability to fund necessary services and pushes the state to depend on regressive sources of revenue such as VAT, and customs taxes. 

These types of taxes disproportionately impact women and vulnerable communities according to a recent study by Aswaat Nisaa, a civil society organisation. 

Finally, it signals to the public that elites are beneficiaries of economic reforms while the everyday Tunisians are left to shoulder the burden of economic reforms alone.

Without structural reforms addressing the dominance of Tunisia’s oligarchs’ other reforms will fall prey to their outsized and illicit influence. 

Tunisian academics have shown that previous privatisations mandated by the IMF were used as a mechanism to transfer public wealth to connected elites that reinforced regulatory capture. 

Additionally, studies have shown that politically connected businesses are statistically more likely to evade taxes and tariffs. 

Including robust reforms to counter this will strengthen the popularity of an economic reform program and target entrenched economic elites instead of vulnerable and middle classes.

A once-in-a-lifetime chance to fix things

This is a historic opportunity to enforce progressive fiscal policies to address Tunisia’s economic challenges. 

Economic reforms are inherently political, but they should be designed to address the concerns and aspirations of the population impacted by them. 

Tunisia’s economic difficulties are significant but Tunisian researchers and analysts have studied the problems and put forward robust, practical and effective solutions that are not only economically but also politically sustainable.

Timothy Kaldas is the Deputy Director, and Ayoub Menzli is a Nonresident Fellow at The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP).

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Footage shows sub-Saharan African migrants being attacked and expelled over 48 hours in Tunisia

During the night of July 3, Tunisians attacked the homes of sub-Saharan migrants in Sfax, the country’s second-largest city. The violence was sparked by the death of a Tunisian, blamed on three sub-Saharan Africans. Footage filmed by the assailants and residents shows the outbreak of violence. The police then picked up many of the migrants and abandoned them in the desert.

Tarak Mahdi, a Tunisian Member of Parliament, live-streamed and published the aftermath of an altercation between a Tunisian man and three others, who he said were sub-Saharan migrants in the city of Sfax. 

“Some Africans stabbed a man this evening,” he said to the camera. He then shows the body of a man lying on the pavement, blood running down the road. A woman comes from the end of the street and cries, “My son!” 

Mahdi explained that the man is in a critical condition, calling on the police to intervene immediately

“The Africans who stabbed him have escaped, so everyone needs to get involved.” 

Screenshot of the video posted live on Facebook by Tarak Mahdi on July 3 at 11:54pm. © Tarak Mahdi

The FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to verify around about a dozen videos filmed and shared online on this shocking night

Another video filmed at the same location shows uniformed National Guard officers and civilians questioning several Black men, who are then loaded into official vehicles. There is another crowd of young men there, some armed with rods. 


Later that evening, police vans were on patrol in Tunisia’s second largest city Sfax, where the incident took place. Videos filmed by local residents show police raids in various parts of the city, with crowds of Tunisians watching on. 

The footage below shows crowds of young men watching the police raid on a road linking the district of Sakiet Ezzit to Sakiet Eddaier (in the northeast of Sfax). Some had even climbed onto the roofs and walls of nearby houses. In the street, several official vans were parked, flashing lights, including one belonging to the special intervention brigade.


The crowd starts singing a verse of the national anthem, and applauds and encourages the gendarmes who maintain a security cordon between the crowd and the migrants being arrested. “There are over 200 people here”, says the person filming the video. 

Another video filmed on the notorious night in the al-Habib district of Sfax shows crowds applauding an arrest operation carried out by Tunisian police in the homes of sub-Saharan migrants.

The person filming exclaims, “Long live Tunisia! Sfax is not a colony. Get out, get out! Go home!” 

The crowd repeats a chant often used by football fans in defiance of the police: “We don’t f*ck with the police, we’re only afraid of God.” The chant their way of supporting those taking justice into their own hands.


‘All the Black people who passed by this area were stopped or beaten up’

On July 4, Guillaume (not his real name), a migrant from a sub-Saharan African country, reached out to the FRANCE 24 Observers team. He lives in Gremda. He lives in Gremda and states that on July 3 homes in his neighbourhood were attacked by groups of Tunisian men. 

He managed to escape and says he’s now in a safe place. He recounted what happened in shaky voice messages.

I can’t even raise my voice where I am talking to you at the moment. I’m very scared, many of my loved ones have been taken away by the National Guard in Sfax. 

On July 3, in Gremda, Tunisians came armed with rods and machetes [Editor’s note: several eyewitness accounts mention the use of knives, though the FRANCE 24 Observers team has been unable to verify this with visual evidence], during the night at the Café des Chinois [known to be a gathering place for sub-Saharans in Sfax]. All the Black people who passed by this area were stopped or beat up. They wounded several people with knives too.


Another of our sub-Saharan Observers in Sfax sent us this video filmed on the night of July 4, 2023. It shows a migrant’s flat being ransacked by a group of Tunisians who throw their belongings to the ground.

We couldn’t film the attack on July 4th because we were too scared. The assailants threw stones at our heads. They broke into our neighbour’s house, smashed her furniture and windows, searched the house and smashed the TV. They also set fire to the house. When the sub-Saharan neighbours called the police, they turned up but took away the sub-Saharan people who were outside, without checking their papers or letting them collect their passports. 

Luckily, I was able to escape into the night, I ran, I passed a car leaving the city and the driver let me in. I still can’t believe I’m alive.


A video filmed on the evening of July 3, 2023 by our Ivorian Observer Samuel (not his real name) in the Ghroubi district of Sfax shows a flat where several migrants were living completely ransacked. He claims that locals armed with knives broke into the flat.

‘They dropped us off in the mountains, then the police and the buses turned back’

An unknown number of sub-Saharan Africans were loaded onto buses. On the morning of July 5, our Observer Alpha (not his real name), from Guinea, sent us messages from “the desert” where he was dropped off. He had travelled all night in a bus accompanied by two other vehicles belonging to the Sfax regional urban transport company SORETRAS, also carrying sub-Saharan Africans.


Our Guinean Observer sent us this video on the morning of July 5 around 8:30am. After having travelled by bus all night, the police left them near the Algerian border. We have not heard from them since that morning.

They put us on a bus at around 10:30pm, then we took the road out of Sfax. At 11:45pm, the bus stopped 10km from the centre of Sfax, and we stopped on the road to pick up even more people. The bus was packed, and a second bus joined the convoy. They checked people in the street, and as soon as they saw a black person they made him get on the bus. They didn’t ask for any papers or residence permits making them get on. 

I said to the policeman before I got on the bus: “We’ve heard that you’re sending us to the Libyan desert or to Algeria”. The policeman told me no, that they were going to send us to a safe place. But this morning we were dropped off on what looks more like the Algerian border. We were dropped off in the mountains, and then the police vehicles and buses turned back. We’re walking towards the border, hoping to run into Algerian border guards or to enter Algerian territory.

Read moreThe growing xenophobic violence against sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia

‘If you make the mistake of hanging around near the police station, they’ll send you into the desert’

Those who escaped the police are now in hiding at home, like Paul (not his real name), a Cameroonian resident of the Ennasria district in the centre of Sfax.

This morning [July 5], at the post office in Ennasria, in the centre of Sfax, people who had come to withdraw their money via Western Union were taken away: the police came and rounded everyone up.  

But as I live in the city centre, I’m a little relieved: at least here, it’s not as easy for the Tunisian residents to make a lot of noise as in the outlying areas.

You have to stay in your house; outside you can be stopped by the police at any time. If you make the mistake of hanging around near the police station, they’ll send you into the desert.

The police do nothing to look for the attackers, absolutely nothing.


This video filmed by our Observer Paul on the morning of July 4 shows three police vehicles parked outside the post office in Sfax. Uniformed and plainclothes men stop a group of sub-Saharans before making them get into one of the vehicles.

According to the spokesperson for the Sfax justice ministry, 34 migrants were arrested the night of July 3 following altercations with residents in the Gremda district, where the initial murder took place. 

Also, four Tunisians were taken into custody for having given shelter to illegal migrants in Sfax. To date, none of the Tunisians involved in the violence have been arrested or questioned.

Read moreXenophobia grows amidst raids and repeated attacks on sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia

On July 5, the public prosecutor’s office issued a warrant for the detention of a further 33 illegal sub-Saharan migrants at the Sfax court. 

These raids followed two shocking waves of xenophobic violence and deportations of sub-Saharan migrants. In February 2023, a speech by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed prompted accusations of racism and xenophobia targeting sub-Saharan Africans in particular.

Read more‘They spit on us’: What’s really going on in the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis

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How the Ayhika and Sutirtha pair conquered Tunis!

Naihati is a small municipality in Kolkata, famous for being the birthplace of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, the author of the National song, Vande Mataram.

Going places: With their recent exploits Ayhika and Sutirtha jumped 18 places to be ranked World No. 18 in doubles, and their next target will be to breach the top-10.
| Photo Credit:
World Table Tennis

In a significant event, two young sportswomen from Naihati imprinted their names on the world table tennis map.

On a humid evening at the Salle Omnisport de Rades Indoor Stadium in Tunis (Tunisia), the Indian duo of Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee, created history by claiming its maiden tour title in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender event.

Being childhood friends and having started their career under the guidance of renowned coach Mihir Ghosh, the pair has gained prominence in a short time and promises more, given the way it has performed in 2022-23.

Ayhika and Sutirtha have done reasonably well as a duo, reaching the final of the WTT Contender in Muscat (Oman) in March last year and making the quarterfinals in the WTT Star Contender in Goa, which underlines their quick progress.

Given the quality of players in Tunis, Ayhika and Sutirtha trained hard together for more than two months under the watchful eyes of former National champions and husband-wife pair of Soumyadeep Roy and Paulomi Ghatak at the Soumyadeep Roy TT Academy in Kolkata. Their hardwork and planning paid rich dividends.

“We are happy to win our first title. Our focus was on doubles. We did practise regularly, working on minute details, and we are happy that our hard work paid off,” says Ayhika, speaking to The Hindu from Tunis airport, where she was waiting to get the next flight to Zagreb, along with Sutirtha.

It was the contrasting personalities of the two paddlers that partly worked in their favour. Sutirtha is more serious while Ayhika is jovial and fun. “Ayhika is a joy to play with. Whenever I am under pressure, she ‘cools’ me with words like ‘it’s alright’, ‘we can do it’. And just her smile is enough to keep me focused,” says Sutirtha.

It’s not just their personality, their game styles, too, are as different as chalk and cheese. Sutirtha uses short pimple on her forehand while Ayhika employs funny rubber on her backhand. So, it does help to confuse the opponents. During counter-attacks, Ayhika slows the pace down and ensures that the rival pair, too, does the same with her anti-spin rubber which the opponents find difficult to return. “Sutirtha is very good on her forehand and backhand attack. Our different playing styles did help in the win,” insists Ayhika.

The pair created quite a stir in the tournament, beating the top three seeds on it’s way to the title.

It started with a facile win over the Americans, Amy Wang and Rachel Sumo, before proceeding to scalp the third seeds from Taipei, Huang Yi-Hua and Chen Szu-Yu, in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Indians created the biggest upset, by edging out the top seeds, Jeon Jihee and Shin Yubin of Korea, who were the silver medallist in the 2023 World championships in Durban.

In the final, the Indians were confidence personified not allowing pressure get the better of them, by beating the second seeds from Japan, Miyuu Kihara and Miwa Harimoto.

“If you see, we didn’t start well in the first two matches. Even in the final, I told Sutirtha, ‘Let’s start the way we have started. Even if we lose the first or second game, let’s be focused. But we won the first two games, and the third game we lost focus after 4-4. And in the fourth, when the scores were tied at 9-9, Sutirtha’s service point was wonderful. It was our self confidence that was the key,” says Ayhika.

In fact, Ayhika and Sutirtha’s first WTT tournament in Muscat, as a pair, was a revelation as it reached the final, beating the top-seeded Puerto Rico pair of Adriana Diaz and Melanie Diaz in the first round. Ayhika and Sutirtha went on to lose to the Chinese pair of Rui Zhang and Man Kuai in the summit clash. Interestingly, the duo of Manika Batra and Archana Kamath was seeded second there.

It was after that tournament that the pair started to know their capabilities and realised that they need to train more together and practise with diligence if they have to do well at the international level.

Though both are primarily singles players — Ayhika is ranked No. 2 in India and 118 in the world, while Sutirtha is India’s No. 4 in India and 116 in the world — they are trying to play both singles and doubles in a bid to get their ranking up, with the Asian Games and Paris Olympics coming up. “We want to perform well as a pair in WTT events and qualify for the Asian Games and Asian championships,” says Sutirtha.

In fact, after the Tunis crown, the pair has jumped 18 places to be ranked 18 in the world, five places behind the Manika-Archana duo.

Their coach Soumyadeep says the need to focus more on doubles became clearer after the WTT Star Contender in Goa where the pair reached the last eight. “That was the trigger to make them train harder,” says Soumyadeep, while adding, “Their combination is good because of their different playing styles. With that in mind, we started working. Their patience and aggression ensured they did well in Tunis.”

In the run-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Soumyadeep says Ayhika-Sutirtha’s singles rankings will be important. “So, they need to balance both singles and doubles. They have four more tournaments this year. They can move further up the rankings,” he says.

Mamata Prabhu, India’s coach at Tunis, says the different playing styles and rubbers Ayhika and Sutirtha employ had a devastating effect on the opponents. “Sutirtha has plain rubber on backhand, and short pimple on her forehand. Ayhika, on the other hand, has short pimple on forehand and anti-spin (Gorilla brand) on her backhand. With four different rubbers, we could employ ‘n’ number of strategies. We used them effectively against the Koreans and Japanese in the semifinals and final, respectively,” she says.

Ayhika and Sutirtha, who are looking for sponsors, are now in Zagreb (Croatia) playing in the qualifying rounds in singles while being placed in the main draw in doubles.

Their target will now be to breach the World doubles top-10. After a heart-warming show in Tunis, there is, definitely, room for optimism and hope.

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Table Tennis | How the Ayhika and Sutirtha pair conquered Tunis!

Naihati is a small municipality in Kolkata, famous for being the birthplace of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, the author of the National song, Vande Mataram.

Going places: With their recent exploits Ayhika and Sutirtha jumped 18 places to be ranked World No. 18 in doubles, and their next target will be to breach the top-10.
| Photo Credit:
World Table Tennis

In a significant event, two young sportswomen from Naihati imprinted their names on the world table tennis map.

On a humid evening at the Salle Omnisport de Rades Indoor Stadium in Tunis (Tunisia), the Indian duo of Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee, created history by claiming its maiden tour title in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender event.

Being childhood friends and having started their career under the guidance of renowned coach Mihir Ghosh, the pair has gained prominence in a short time and promises more, given the way it has performed in 2022-23.

Ayhika and Sutirtha have done reasonably well as a duo, reaching the final of the WTT Contender in Muscat (Oman) in March last year and making the quarterfinals in the WTT Star Contender in Goa, which underlines their quick progress.

Given the quality of players in Tunis, Ayhika and Sutirtha trained hard together for more than two months under the watchful eyes of former National champions and husband-wife pair of Soumyadeep Roy and Paulomi Ghatak at the Soumyadeep Roy TT Academy in Kolkata. Their hardwork and planning paid rich dividends.

“We are happy to win our first title. Our focus was on doubles. We did practise regularly, working on minute details, and we are happy that our hard work paid off,” says Ayhika, speaking to The Hindu from Tunis airport, where she was waiting to get the next flight to Zagreb, along with Sutirtha.

It was the contrasting personalities of the two paddlers that partly worked in their favour. Sutirtha is more serious while Ayhika is jovial and fun. “Ayhika is a joy to play with. Whenever I am under pressure, she ‘cools’ me with words like ‘it’s alright’, ‘we can do it’. And just her smile is enough to keep me focused,” says Sutirtha.

It’s not just their personality, their game styles, too, are as different as chalk and cheese. Sutirtha uses short pimple on her forehand while Ayhika employs funny rubber on her backhand. So, it does help to confuse the opponents. During counter-attacks, Ayhika slows the pace down and ensures that the rival pair, too, does the same with her anti-spin rubber which the opponents find difficult to return. “Sutirtha is very good on her forehand and backhand attack. Our different playing styles did help in the win,” insists Ayhika.

The pair created quite a stir in the tournament, beating the top three seeds on it’s way to the title.

It started with a facile win over the Americans, Amy Wang and Rachel Sumo, before proceeding to scalp the third seeds from Taipei, Huang Yi-Hua and Chen Szu-Yu, in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Indians created the biggest upset, by edging out the top seeds, Jeon Jihee and Shin Yubin of Korea, who were the silver medallist in the 2023 World championships in Durban.

In the final, the Indians were confidence personified not allowing pressure get the better of them, by beating the second seeds from Japan, Miyuu Kihara and Miwa Harimoto.

“If you see, we didn’t start well in the first two matches. Even in the final, I told Sutirtha, ‘Let’s start the way we have started. Even if we lose the first or second game, let’s be focused. But we won the first two games, and the third game we lost focus after 4-4. And in the fourth, when the scores were tied at 9-9, Sutirtha’s service point was wonderful. It was our self confidence that was the key,” says Ayhika.

In fact, Ayhika and Sutirtha’s first WTT tournament in Muscat, as a pair, was a revelation as it reached the final, beating the top-seeded Puerto Rico pair of Adriana Diaz and Melanie Diaz in the first round. Ayhika and Sutirtha went on to lose to the Chinese pair of Rui Zhang and Man Kuai in the summit clash. Interestingly, the duo of Manika Batra and Archana Kamath was seeded second there.

It was after that tournament that the pair started to know their capabilities and realised that they need to train more together and practise with diligence if they have to do well at the international level.

Though both are primarily singles players — Ayhika is ranked No. 2 in India and 118 in the world, while Sutirtha is India’s No. 4 in India and 116 in the world — they are trying to play both singles and doubles in a bid to get their ranking up, with the Asian Games and Paris Olympics coming up. “We want to perform well as a pair in WTT events and qualify for the Asian Games and Asian championships,” says Sutirtha.

In fact, after the Tunis crown, the pair has jumped 18 places to be ranked 18 in the world, five places behind the Manika-Archana duo.

Their coach Soumyadeep says the need to focus more on doubles became clearer after the WTT Star Contender in Goa where the pair reached the last eight. “That was the trigger to make them train harder,” says Soumyadeep, while adding, “Their combination is good because of their different playing styles. With that in mind, we started working. Their patience and aggression ensured they did well in Tunis.”

In the run-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Soumyadeep says Ayhika-Sutirtha’s singles rankings will be important. “So, they need to balance both singles and doubles. They have four more tournaments this year. They can move further up the rankings,” he says.

Mamata Prabhu, India’s coach at Tunis, says the different playing styles and rubbers Ayhika and Sutirtha employ had a devastating effect on the opponents. “Sutirtha has plain rubber on backhand, and short pimple on her forehand. Ayhika, on the other hand, has short pimple on forehand and anti-spin (Gorilla brand) on her backhand. With four different rubbers, we could employ ‘n’ number of strategies. We used them effectively against the Koreans and Japanese in the semifinals and final, respectively,” she says.

Ayhika and Sutirtha, who are looking for sponsors, are now in Zagreb (Croatia) playing in the qualifying rounds in singles while being placed in the main draw in doubles.

Their target will now be to breach the World doubles top-10. After a heart-warming show in Tunis, there is, definitely, room for optimism and hope.

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Does making a deal with Tunisia’s Saied mean Europe can be extorted?

By Tarek Megerisi, Senior Policy Fellow, ECFR

During their most recent visit to Tunis, European leaders just threw away the continent’s best chance of living up to its much-professed values and tackling the forces that actually drive Tunisian migration, Tarek Megerisi writes.

Tunisia is suffering. A collapsing economy has caused shortages of basic foods and medicines for over a year now, while inflation has rendered any protein a rare delicacy. 

Cities are left without water during the evenings as local agriculture is devastated. And it’s not just the quality of life which is oppressive.

Politicians, judges, journalists, and activists are all being arrested in droves for the crime of standing up to their authoritarian President Kais Saied, who keeps fiddling as his country burns.

After two years of nonchalance, Europe, at last, has been roused into action. 

Last week, a coalition led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and including Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and Dutch PM Mark Rutte travelled to Tunis.

Their timing was almost cinematic, coming shortly after the Tunisian central bank announced it could only afford 91 more days of imports and the country’s credit rating was downgraded yet again. 

But the European leaders weren’t coming to help Tunisia: they were desperately trying to stop Tunisian migrants. 

And in their panic, they’ve thrown away Europe’s and Tunisia’s best chance to reform its political economy and bring migration under control.

Fears of supercharged migration made European leaders make the wrong call

Emigration out of the North African country has been rising exponentially over the past two years, as young Tunisians progressively lost hope in their country and their capacity to amend the two issues they feel the most passionately about: the lack of economic opportunity and a security service that brutalises rather than protects them.

Europe’s fear is that migration will be supercharged if Tunisia defaults on its crushing loan repayments or runs out of the foreign currency needed for food, fuel and medicinal imports. 

What’s even worse is that this crisis is completely unnecessary and could have been avoided altogether.

An IMF cash injection was agreed with Saied’s government last December. But, the populist and paranoid president keeps refusing to sign off on it, repackaging the unpopularity of cutting subsidies to the public sector as a violation of Tunisian sovereignty.

However, he has failed to articulate any plan of his own beyond whispers of an Argentina-style voluntary default.

A golden opportunity wasted

Then, Meloni’s “Team Europe” landed in Tunis under the pretence of trying to get this IMF deal over the line.

Behind that façade, they hashed out a deal to essentially keep Saied afloat so long as his navy dealt with any migrant boats found on their way to Europe. 

It’s a story that the region and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allies will recite the next time Europeans invoke their values to marshal support for Ukraine.

The non-European Mediterranean has witnessed a reaffirmation of European weakness. 

This openness to extortion is something other strongmen like Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have and will continue to routinely exploit whenever they need a cash injection. 

The pressure on all to avoid Tunisia’s economic apocalypse could have been used to amend the IMF deal and include reforms long-demanded by the Tunisians focused on turning the private sector into an engine of wealth creation.

This would’ve given the populist president the optics needed to sign off on the deal and given Tunisians a reason to stay.

But Europe hasn’t just squandered a golden opportunity to reform Tunisia’s economy. 

They’ve casually discarded their one tool to protect the country’s democracy and reverse President Saied’s destabilising tyranny: their leverage over Tunisia’s security services.

A small act of accountability would have gone a long way

Saied has always been a typical strongman who, despite first being a constitutional law professor and then writing the new country’s constitution himself, consistently operated outside Tunisian law to achieve authoritarian goals, from freezing out the parliament in 2021 to his current violent arrest campaign.

He has always been wholly reliant on Tunisian security services to support his diktats, from parking their tanks outside parliament to putting political prisoners on trial in front of military courts.

These same security services receive considerable funding from Europe and the USA and privileges including equipment, training programmes, easy travel for their families to Europe, and the prestige of being a major non-NATO ally.

These privileges, which Tunisia’s senior military class are extremely fond of, could’ve been used as leverage to simply demand that they follow Tunisian law if they are to remain part of the liberal world order’s security establishment. 

It’s a small act of accountability that could have had a monumental effect in restoring the political opposition, media scrutiny, and rule of law — all parts of a democratic society that Saied has shown to be against — and that could have been the vehicle for change. 

Not only has Europe discarded this tool. Even worse: its leaders gave all their power in this relationship to Tunisia’s security structures instead by begging them to become Europe’s border force.

The forces that drive Tunisian migration could have been tackled differently

At the end of Team Europe’s trip, von der Leyen’s unedited message is that Saied and his forces are poised to receive just over €1 billion of European taxpayer money — meaning that Europe will continue to work in Saied’s favour to weaken IMF conditionality by simply covering Tunisia’s debts.

There will be no economic reforms to enable promised trade, no media to report that promised green investments will never come, and no political opposition to scrutinise the cooperation on curbing migration.

Saied’s security services’ salaries and privileges will be ring-fenced. They will receive state-of-the-art European equipment to help them oppress their population. 

As a result, young Tunisians will be even more desperate to migrate.

The continent’s leaders just threw away Europe’s best chance of living up to its much-professed values and tackling the forces that actually drive Tunisian migration. 

Instead, they committed to paying a billion euros solely to advertise to the wider region that they’re open for extortion.

As Meloni, Rutte, and von der Leyen patted each other on the back on the flight home, the irony that they’ve committed Europe to further years of migration anxiety will be lost on them —  just as the rights of Tunisians and the value of democracy was lost on them during their day trip to Tunis.

Tarek Megerisi is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Why Tunisia’s political and economical crisis is Europe’s problem too

Following President Kais Saied’s political crackdown on dissent in Tunisia, Europe has been cautious about condemning his authoritarian descent, fearful of risking instability in a country which plays a key role in stopping illegal migration.

More than 2,000 kilometres away from the political heart of the European Union in Brussels, Tunisia’s fragile democracy is being eroded and the country’s stability is starting to shake.

The democracy which the country has taken more than a decade to build after the Arab Spring is being dismantled by Tunisia’s current president Kais Saied, who’s shrunk the power of parliament and the judiciary since taking office in 2019, and has recently crackdown on the opposition.

Meanwhile, Tunisia’s economy is on the verge of collapse as the country scrambles to find enough foreign funding to sustain its massive external debt.

But what happens in Tunisia doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and the physical distance between Europe and Tunisia is unlikely to shield the continent from the consequences of the North African country’s authoritarian descent and the unravelling of its democracy. Political and economic turmoil in the North African country is likely to have a significant impact on Europe – and especially Italy.

That is not only because parts of Italy, like the island of Sardinia, are actually closer to the Tunisian coast than they are to the country’s mainland. But also because Italy has recently become Tunisia’s number one trading partner, and the country increasingly relies on Tunisian authorities to discourage the growing migratory pressure on the Italian coasts.

What is happening in Tunisia?

On 10 April, in the Tunisian town of Haffouz, history almost repeated itself when 35-year-old footballer Nizar Issaoui set himself on fire to protest against what he called “the police state.”

Issaoui, a former player for US Monastir and a father of four, was accused of terrorism after complaining about the rising price of bananas – 10 dinars, the equivalent of €3.05 – with a fruit seller.

His desperate gesture was almost identical to that of fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation on 17 December 2010 started off a series of uprisings throughout the Arab world which became known as the “Arab Spring.” 

Tunisia was the country where the Arab Spring started, and the only success story of the uprising. While in other countries the protests didn’t achieve much real change, Tunisia emerged from the revolutionary times with an apparently stable multi-party democracy led by a new government which took the place of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. 

Ben Ali had been Tunisia’s president since 1987, but resigned in 2011 and fled to Saudi Arabia after weeks of protests.

In the years that followed, Tunisia introduced a constitution that enshrined civil rights and made sure that no other strongman could take the lead of the country. It was a huge success for Tunisians – but the initial excitement soon turned into disillusionment as a series of governments failed to bring to life the dream of economic growth and improved living conditions that came with the uprisings.

Tunisia is now much poorer than it was in 2010, partly because of the devastating impact the pandemic had on its economy and rising inflation. The disappointment with the new democratic system led to the landslide victory of Kais Saied in 2019, which turned the previously unknown constitutional law expert into Tunisia’s sixth president in the last 12 years.

During his campaign, Saied said that the democratic system wasn’t working, claiming that political parties in parliament had too much power.

When during the pandemic Saied was given emergency powers to try and rescue the country’s severely hit economy and struggling health services, he used these powers to fire the prime minister, close the National Assembly and suspend the constitution – reversing a decade of democratic reforms.

Those who criticised and opposed him, from politicians to journalists, were detained or jailed. In July last year, Saied won a referendum which allowed him to introduce a new constitution, increasing his power at the detriment of the parliament and the judiciary.

On April 17, the arrest of the leader of the opposition Ennahda party Rached Ghannouchi sparked an outcry from critics of Saied accusing his government of taking an increasingly authoritarian turn.

A similarly outraged reaction has been triggered by Saied’s hateful comments on migrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa. Saied said they’re part of a “conspiracy” aimed at changing the demographic composition of Tunisia and has blamed them for the problems of the country.

But Tunisia’s political turmoil isn’t the only crisis the country is facing.

“Parallel to that there’s an economic crisis linked to Tunisia’s significant external debt, which is reliant on foreign funding to continue to effectively meet these external liabilities,” Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa Project Director at the think tank the International Crisis Group, told Euronews.

Tunisia right now doesn’t have enough money to pay its significant debt, and it needs to find a source of financing to avoid a default. “The big risk right now is that at some point Tunisia might have to default on its debt with a series of consequences – politically, socially and economically – that we can’t fully anticipate,” Fabiani said.

The EU is the biggest foreign investor in Tunisia, accounting for 85% of the foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the country.

Why does this matter for Europe – and Italy?

“The Europeans feel that they are on the front line of instability in North Africa and in the Mediterranean,” Fabiani said. “And they feel that what happens in Tunisia has direct consequences for them.”

From a migration perspective, particularly in Italy, “there is a strong fear that not only that economic or political instability in Tunisia may trigger a new wave of migration, including irregular departures from Tunisia to Europe,” Fabiani said.

“And we have already seen over the past months an increase in the number of departures and regular departures from Tunisia because of the economic crisis.”

Some 18,893 migrants have reached the Italian coasts from the North African country since the beginning of the year and as of 18 April, 2,764 of whom held a Tunisian passport.

Saied’s attacks against sub-Saharan Africans in the country are likely to have caused a surge in the number of people willing to leave Tunisia, and Tunisian nationals are just as eager to leave. According to a recent survey by the Observatoire National de la Migration, 65% of Tunisians say they’re willing to leave the country at whatever cost. Among those under 30, the percentage goes up to 90%.

The number of arrivals from Tunisia has significantly increased compared to the same timeframe last year, when less than 2,000 migrants reached Italy’s coasts.

“Italy has never criticised Kais Saied, because for Italy the most important thing is that Saied can keep things under control, in terms of migration, in his country. This is the most important thing, even if it means that Italy has to interact with and foster a long-term friendship with a leader as problematic as Saied,” Alissa Pavia, associate director for the North Africa Program within the Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, told Euronews.

“It’s understandable that Italy and the European governments might be concerned that instability could trigger migration, but they’re also concerned that instability in Tunisia could make the situation worse. For example, in some of the neighbouring countries, like Libya, where there is already a crisis that has been going on for many years. So, you know, there are concerns about regional stability and migration that are very high, I would say, in the list of priorities of the Europeans.”

There are also purely economic reasons why the unfolding political situation in Tunisia is important for Europe, and especially Italy – the same reasons why Giorgia Meloni’s government is more interested in maintaining stability in the North African country than protecting its democracy.

Last year, Italy became Tunisia’s number one trading partner, overtaking France – though France remains the North African country’s leading export market. Germany follows the two Mediterranean countries in third place.

The Algerian gas supplies – which Italy started relying on in 2022 to replace Russian imports – go across Tunisia before reaching Italy, through the Enrico Mattei pipeline, also known as the Trans-Med pipeline.

Is stability in the region worth turning a blind eye to Saied’s authoritarian turn?

The European Parliament has already made two statements about Tunisian in 2023: one condemning President Saied and the way he has used the worsening socio-economic situation to reverse the country’s historic democratic transition; and the other urging Tunisian authorities to immediately release Noureddine Boutar, director of Tunisia’s largest independent radio station, who was arrested by counter-terrorist units on politically motivated grounds and unfounded allegations.

In February, Wolfgang Büchner, a German government spokesperson, said that Berlin was looking at the arrests of the Tunisian opposition, journalists, and activists with “great concern.” 

In April, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “Tunisia’s democracy must not be lost” after Rached Ghannouchi, head of the opposition, was arrested.

“Yet, we have yet to see a strong and cohesive European condemnation of President Saied’s ongoing power grab,” said the Atlantic Council’s Alissa Pavia. 

“We have yet to see any concrete actions taken by either the EU or other EU Countries. Europe must decide whether it intends to support Tunisia’s democracy, or whether it will allow it to descend back into authoritarianism.”

Europe, and especially Italy, have an interest in maintaining stability in the country – which in this case means not exerting pressure on Saied to rein in its political crackdown on dissent. But Saied’s political crackdown risks having the same effect which Europe and Italy wish to avoid.

“We can see a positive correlation between dictators taking power and an increase of persecution against political opposition and other people, for example, people of minorities and so on, increasingly migrating and trying to reach Europe and Italy,” Pavia said.

“Generally it’s better to have open communication with democratic rulers rather than be at the behest of tyrants and dictators who we can’t trust.”



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‘They spit on us’: What’s really going on in the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis

Issued on:

Officially, the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis is meant to serve as a reception centre to “welcome and orient” new arrivals to Tunisia. However, what is actually happening there has long remained opaque because NGOs and lawyers aren’t allowed access. The FRANCE 24 Observers decided to investigate the nightmarish conditions inside. Our source told us that about fifty migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, most of them Black Africans, are being arbitrarily detained in the squalid centre.

Léopold (not his real name) came from the Ivory Coast to Tunisia several years ago to attend university. When he graduated, he decided to stay and work in the country. He also got married and had a child. However, Léopold was not a legal resident of the country where he had made his home. And so, in 2021, he began sorting out his papers and regularising his situation.

However, before Léopold was able to finish the process, he was arrested alongside several other Ivorians when police raided the headquarters of the Association of active Ivoirians in Sfax (AIVAS) on August 21, 2021. He was placed in detention in Tunis.

‘There is a difference between what the judicial system decides and what the border police do’

A judge at the Ariana tribunal said that Léopold should be released on July 22, 2022. However, instead of being allowed to return home to his family, police brought him to the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis, where he has been arbitrarily detained ever since. He has received no legal or administrative support.

According to a judge, I was freed last summer. But there is a difference between what the judicial system decides and what the border police do.

From the moment I stepped into the migrant centre, I realised that the guards there were ready to harm us and it gave me a good indication of what to expect during my stay there. They spit on us, they called us “kahlouch” [Editor’s note: a derogatory term for Black people in North African Arabic] or “guirguira” [Editor’s note: a word that is supposed to imitate the sounds made by a monkey].

“Tunisia is our country, we’ll do what we want with you,” the guards told us.


This video was filmed from the back of a police car on February 27 by a person being taken, along with others, from Mornaguia Prison to the El Ouardia migrant centre. “We don’t know where they are taking us,” the man says. He was arrested along with others on February 13 during a campaign to arrest Black Africans.

Most of the people detained in the centre don’t want to go back to their countries of origin, but they are also being denied their freedom. I came to study in Tunis and then started working there. My family and my child are in Tunisia, I don’t plan on going back [to my home country].

Since February, police in Tunisia have been carrying out a campaign of violence and arrests of Black African migrants living in Tunisia. The campaign intensified in mid-February when Tunisian President Kais Saied called for the deportation of the “hoards of clandestine migrants” in the country.

>> Watch on The Observers: The growing xenophobic violence against sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia

‘Many of us were transferred to the centre from Mornaguia Prison because there is no room there’

Before the arrests began in February, there weren’t many of us in the centre. But since then, we’ve seen many people brought to El Ouardia even after a judge has ordered their release – like me. There are also migrants transferred to the centre after spending months in prison. 

 

There are about fifty men in the centre and four women.

 

“There are fifteen of us in this room,” says our Observer. The footage shows metal beds and mattresses on the ground. In another room (shown at right) ten people sleep on the floor. Screengrabs taken from videos sent by our Observer on March 9, 2023.

 

Many of us were transferred to the centre from Mornaguia Prison because there is no room there. One of the people who was detained there said that he spent six nights without a bunk, so, here, we take turns sleeping. 

There are so many of us in the dormitories. It’s chaotic. There are a lot of sick people who then spread their illnesses to others. A number of people ill with COVID were transferred here without ever being given a test.

 


In this video, a group of Black African migrants in Tunisia call for help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in this video posted on February 26.

 

This video shows the men’s toilets in the El Ouardia migrant centre.
This video shows the men’s toilets in the El Ouardia migrant centre. Screengrab from a video sent by our Observer on March 9, 2023.

 

‘What happens in the centre rarely gets out’

Since I’ve been here, we’ve called on the authorities several times to give us papers. On February 27, those of us detained here in El Ouardia held a protest, calling on the UN High Commissioner to take an interest in our plight. 

Even though the centre is run by the National Guard [known as the gendarmerie], when we started protesting, they brought the border police in to shut down the protest. They handcuffed us, stripped us and beat us savagely. Some of the men here got terrible injuries including wounds and dislocated shoulders. 

But what happens in the centre rarely gets out.

 

@monsieurleministre25 ♬ son original – monsieurleministre

This man was transferred from Mornaguia Prison to the El Ouardia migrant centre. He protested the morning of February 27 along with other people detained at the centre, calling for restoration of their rights and freedom. “The police were deployed this morning to prevent us [from protesting]. They say that we aren’t in prison, but they are lying to us,” he said.

 

Officially, it’s a reception centre, though it functions like a detention centre’

The number of detainees fluctuates in the El Ouardia “Reception and Orientation Centre” – as it is officially known – according to Romdhane Ben Amor, the spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum of Economic and Social Rights.

There are migrant centres in each region in Tunisia. However, the El Ouardia centre is the only one run by the ministry of the interior, which means that it is the only one where migrants are being arbitrarily detained in this extreme way.

Ben Amor explained:

The Tunisian National Guard, and thus the ministry of the interior, transfers migrants to this centre from prisons and other detention centres before either deporting them or liberating them. According to the latest figures from the World Organisation Against Torture, one of the only NGOs that has managed to access this centre, 51 people are currently being detained there.

Between 2011 and 2013, the centre was open to humanitarian organisations. However, since 2013, only organisations that have an agreement with the Ministry of the Interior have been able to access it.

And, since July 25, 2021 [Editor’s note: the date when President Kais Saied suspended parliament], the centre has only been used for detaining migrants and operates at maximum capacity.

 


In this video, filmed on February 27, an Ivorian man shows the injuries inflicted on him by border police. “They stripped us to beat us, they beat us like dogs,” says the man.

 

The legal status of El Ouardia centre isn’t completely clear. Officially, it’s a reception centre, though it functions like a detention centre.  

‘It’s like they are in prison without any hope of getting out or getting a decision’

There’s also another aspect of how the El Ouardia centre operates that remains unclear. At El Ouardia, detention and liberation are administrative matters and not judicial. That means that a detainee can not appeal their case or ask for judicial support, like help from a lawyer. On the contrary, the decision to detain the person is taken by public servant. There is no guarantee that the person can contest the decision.

Unfortunately, the detention is arbitrary and the migrants who are detained have no information about when they might be released. As if they were in a prison, without any hope of getting out or judgment.

 


This video filmed in the El Ouardia migrant centre in March 2020 shows officials treating migrants roughly and grouping them together before deporting them to the border with Algeria.

 

When the people detained in the migrant centre try to insist that they have rights, they are met with violence, but that isn’t new. These police were transferred to El Ouardia in a punitive role. They aren’t used to working with migrant populations and use violence as a response to everything. 

The Tunis administrative tribunal declared in 2020 that the way that people were detained in the centre was illegal. And even though the Ministry of the Interior promised reforms under the Mechichi government, nothing has changed since.

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Sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia living in ‘climate of fear’ after surge in racist attacks

Hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants fled Tunisia on repatriation flights Saturday after a surge in racist attacks in the North African country following a controversial speech from President President Kais Saied. As tensions reach boiling point, FRANCE 24 talked to Patrick*, a Congolese student who decided to stay despite fearing for his safety.

“Right now, we are afraid to go out for a walk like we used to,” says Patrick*, a Congolese 29-year-old who arrived in Tunisia six months ago to study international business. In the past few weeks, attitudes in Tunisia have hardened towards people like him from sub-Saharan Africa. 

Sub-Saharan migrants living in the North African country have long faced racial stigma, but in the wake of comments from Tunisian President Kais Saied on February 21 tensions have reached boiling point. In a hardline speech targeting illegal immigration the president called for “urgent measures” against “hordes of illegal immigrants” coming from sub-Saharan Africa who he blamed for bringing “violence, crimes and unacceptable deeds” to Tunisia. 

Echoing the great replacement theory popular among some right-wing groups in Europe and the US, he said illegal immigration was the result of a “criminal plan … to change the demographic composition of Tunisia”. 

“The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations,” he added. 

Saied’s speech was condemned by the African Union, NGOs and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The latter criticised his remarks as “xenophobic, offensive and humiliating for the community of sub-Saharan migrants”.  

But, since the speech, attacks on people from sub-Saharan Africa living in Tunisia have multiplied. “I entered Tunisia legally, with my passport, to come and study,” Patrick says. “But because some people enter Tunisia illegally, people make sweeping statements that all Black people have come to take over their country.” 

According to official figures cited by the Tunisian rights group FTDES, there are around 21,000 sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia, a country of about 12 million inhabitants. 

Partick has stopped leaving the house to avoid being targeted. “We are afraid. For the last two weeks I’ve been staying inside. I haven’t been attacked, but I’ve got friends who have been. Since the Tunisian president made his speech, there are Tunisians who are attacking Black people,” he says. 

He lives with another student who has also avoided leaving the house. The pair “make an effort” to go outside sometimes and buy food. “We stay close to home to buy bread and juice. [We only go] into small shops. That’s it.” 

‘Arbitrary attacks’ 

“There is a climate of fear. Things are very tense right now,” says Saadia Mosbah, president of M’nemty, an association working to fight against racial discrimination in Tunisia. 

In the Tunisian city of Sfax four sub-Saharan Africans were attacked with knives during the night of February 25. On the same night in the capital Tunis, four Ivorian students were attacked as they left their halls of residence, RFI reported

“People from sub-Saharan Africa are victim to arbitrary attacks,” Mosbah says, “They are being stigmatised due to the colour of their skin and, consequently, even some black Tunisians are being attacked, as happened to one of the victims in Sfax.”   

Aside from the president’s speech, Mosbah says the Tunisian Nationalist Party (le parti nationaliste tunisien), founded in 2018, has been stoking anti-migrant tensions for months through its speeches and door-to-door campaigns. 

“Militias [from the party] are patrolling the streets in Greater Tunis, Sfax and Médenine ordering landlords to turn sub-Saharan Africans out into the street. They are threatening shopkeepers with closure, legal action, fines and even prison unless they stop selling sub-Saharan Africans milk, rice and semolina,” Mosbah and psychiatrist and writer Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve wrote in an open letter published on March 3 in French daily Le Monde.  

Black African migrants have been “thrown out of housing without their belongings”, says Mosbah. “There are places where houses have even been burned down and pillaged. The people we are now seeing waiting in front of their embassies don’t have a penny to their name ­– their money has been stolen.” 

‘We are afraid’ 

In an increasingly dangerous environment, sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia have been flocking to their embassies in recent days, asking for emergency repatriation. Many are unregistered migrants and have lost their work and their accommodation overnight. 

The Ivory Coast embassy in Tunis flew home 50 nationals on March 1 – including entire families with children and babies – who had spent days camping outside the official building on mattresses and under tarps.  

On the same day around 50 Guinean migrants landed in Conakry after having fled Tunisia on the first repatriation flight after Saied’s speech. Events in Tunisia were “a senseless outpouring of hate”, one told AFP after their plane had landed. 

>> Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown

The growing numbers of sub-Saharan Africans fleeing the country is a source of anxiety for Patrick. “We are afraid. Our sub-Saharan brothers are returning home and now, those of us who are still here, are scared that reprisals are going to fall on us if we stay.” The business student believes the international community should step in to “give a sense of security to sub-Saharans who have stayed in Tunisia”. 

But he does not want to leave, for the moment. “I came here with an objective: to study. I paid for my plane ticket to come here and I paid my school fees. I could return to my country for my safety, but I would be losing out.” 

Even so, he says: “I feel in danger. We are trying to stay optimistic. We hope that things will get better. But we are still afraid.” 

* name has been changed  

This article has been translated from the original in French. 

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Mob attacks two Tunis shelters for LGBTQ people from sub-Saharan Africa

A mob of men wielding sticks and knives attacked a shelter for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa on February 23. Police called to the site arrested at least eight people from sub-Saharan Africa, even though they have refugee status and are therefore legal residents in Tunisia. This is the latest violence to occur in a climate of growing hostility towards Black Africans, spurred by a campaign of repression by the authorities and xenophobic comments made by the Tunisian president.

A group of men attacked a shelter for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa in Ariana, a northern suburb of Tunis during the night of Thursday, February 23. For residents at the shelter, it was a night of pure terror. Many were beaten while others sustained knife wounds. About thirty people, including at least six people in possession of refugee cards from the United Nations, were arrested that night.

This wasn’t the first attack of its kind. A few days earlier, on Monday, February 20, another mob attacked another shelter for LGBTQ refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, this one located in Bab el Khadhra, in the centre of Tunis. 

The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to two refugees who were there during the attack in Ariana on February 23.

‘The son of the landlord threatened to evict us. The next day, he returned with an armed mob’

Chiraz (not her real name) is a transgender refugee from a sub-Saharan Africa country. We are not using her real name to protect her safety. She was at the shelter in Ariana on February 23 when the mob attacked. 

On the evening of February 23, the son of the landlord came, wanting to evict everyone living in the shelter. The night before, he had stood in front of the building and threatened us.


This young man, who our Observers say is the son of their landlord, throws a stone at the person filming from the balcony. The young man shouts an obscene insult, telling the person to “go home”, an added insult to a refugee community. “I will f*ck you in the a**hole. Not tonight, but what until I catch you tomorrow, dirty f**,” he adds.

I don’t live in this shelter but we decided to gather together in one apartment for safety after the attack on another shelter for LGBTQ people from sub-Saharan Africa on February 20. 

There were about 35 or 36 of us in the apartment that night, all of us Black people from sub-Saharan Africa. The son of the landlord, who often says racist and homophobic things to us refugees, came the night of February 23 along with several other Tunisian men. They tried to open the door with a copy of our keys but then ended up breaking it down.

They grabbed my hair, hard enough to pull out some of my locks and they stabbed several people. Other people were beaten, punched in the face.

These photos show where Chiraz’s hair was pulled out. She also sustained injuries to her foot and leg. Her injuries were caused by Tunisian men who attacked the shelter on the night of February 23. © Photos sent by our Observer

‘Instead of arresting the men who attacked us, the police took us away’

The police came later but instead of arresting the men who were attacking us, they brought us to the Borj Louzir police station [Ariana, a suburb of Tunis, NDLR]!

At the police station, we showed them our refugee cards from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. However, the police told us they thought our papers had been forged.


This video, filmed the night of February 23, shows a mob of Tunisian men gathered in front of a building where refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa were living. You can also see two police cars as well as uniformed agents.

In order to get through the situation, I told the police that I was an artist from sub-Saharan Africa and claimed that my current appearance was an “artistic” look I was cultivating. I had to lie about my gender because I was worried about a transphobic attack from the police. Finally, they let seven of the eight of us who had refugee cards go. 

However, the people who didn’t have refugee cards remain in detention. 

A friend of mine who is transgender is still in detention, even though she has refugee status. According to my information, she’s been transferred to the El Ouardia migrant detention centre [Editor’s note: Formally, this Tunis establishment is known as a reception and orientation centre for migrants, however rampant human rights abuses there have been reported by both the media and NGOs].

I haven’t had any news from her since.

We are living in fear that we’ll be arrested or beaten in the street and, so, I don’t go out any more. As a Black trans woman, it is really hard for me to get housing in Tunisia. You come across landlords who want sexual favors or sometimes people will evict us when they realise that we are trans. Even with assistance from the HCR, it can take time to find housing. 

“Chiraz” was given a place in a shelter run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on February 28. The Tunisian office of the HCR also paid for the medical care of those injured in the attack. 

“Brian” (not real name) is another LGBTQ refugee from sub-Saharan Africa. He was injured during the attack on February 20 and is now homeless.

 

‘The police ripped up our refugee cards and called us ‘f**s’’

The day after the attack, I was at the police station all day. We were mistreated— they insulted us and made us sit on the floor. Officers ripped up the refugee cards belonging to some of the people who had been arrested. Luckily, I didn’t end up in prison, unlike some of my friends.  

Considering the situation right now, it’s already dangerous enough to just be walking on the street as a Black person. But now, when they see our refugee cards, then they know that we are homosexual or trans and they insult us, call us names.

Today, most of the people who were living in these shelters are on the street. About 15 of them are packed into an apartment that is still under construction. We are afraid and we don’t go out anymore.

We have been reaching out to our respective consulates and embassies for help but they told us that they can’t help us because we have refugee status from the UNHCR.

‘An Algerian LGBTQ refugee in Tunisia won’t feel targeted, but Black people are often the targets of attacks’

Alexandre Marcel is the president of the IDAHO committee (International Day Against Homophobia), an NGO that fights against homophobia in French-speaking Africa. The organisation is trying to provide legal help to the victims of this wave of repression in Tunisia.

When there are arrests of this type, IDAHO tries to figure out if it is linked to someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Many people have been arrested even though they are refugees. And sometimes the police confiscate their papers and their passports and rip them up.

The [xenophobic] statements made by the president have made things completely different and dangerous. It’s gotten so bad that some taxi drivers will take a Black man directly to the police station if he gets into his vehicle.  We’ve reached that point. 

A LGBTQ refugee from Algeria who is living in Tunisia won’t feel targeted, but Black people are often the targets of attacks and threats. The shelters where these people stay are discrete and not official. However, when the police stumble across them, they tend to blow it all up— destroying people’s homes and personal belongings.

This refugee sustained injuries to his face and hands during the attack on a shelter in Bab el Khadhra on February 20.
This refugee sustained injuries to his face and hands during the attack on a shelter in Bab el Khadhra on February 20. © Photos sent to us by our Observer

The HCR needs to open corridors for these people to travel to the west. These people have already experienced persecution at the hands of the state or the public. But the procedures to get to Europe or North America are difficult. You have to provide a lot of proof [of persecution] and that takes time.

The UNHCR should really enable people to apply for asylum in other countries from where they are being persecuted. Because, right now, if you want to request asylum, you actually have to get to the country where you want to be yourself and apply once there.


This post in French by Amal Bintnadia roughly translates as: “In front of IOM Tunisia – المنظمة الدولية للهجرة بتونس, hundreds of migrants, women and children, among them people with injuries, who were attacked, who saw their homes looted… they are asking to be repatriated and have been waiting weeks for authorisation from the IOM.”

‘We are calling on people to share any useful information with us’

Our team contacted several organisations dedicated to LGBTQ rights in Tunisia, but none of them had information about the fate of the undocumented LGBTQ people arrested on February 23.

Many migrants don’t know anything about their rights. Moreover, people within the LGBTQ sub-Saharan community are even more scared. As a result, the Tunisian NGO Damj, which is dedicated to fighting for minority rights, has been asking the public for help identifying people who need legal and social assistance. Najia Mansour, who runs the branch in Tunis and its environs, explains:

Even the president of Damj, who is Black, was attacked in the street. 

We’ve set up three emergency phone lines depending on the region of the country where people are located – one in Tunis, for people in the north, one in Sfax, for people in the south, and one in Kef, in the centre of the country. We are calling on people to share any information they might have about migrants in difficulty.

Often, we need to wait for a victim to be released from custody in order to provide them with legal support. For the time being, it is an imperfect system, but working – we will wait for the person to be released and then file an administrative complaint over the mistreatment and torture they may have experienced at the hands of the authorities. 

The FRANCE 24 Observers team tried to contact the police in Soukra and Borj Louzir, but they told us to contact the Interior Ministry. 

We tried several times to contact the Interior Ministry, but with no success. We will publish their response if they do get back to us.

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