The case of a prominent migrant advocate who was arrested is being handled by Tunisian anti-terrorist investigators.
According to Romdhane Ben Amor, the spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, Abdallah Said, a Tunisian of Chadian descent, was interrogated alongside Enfants de la Lune, his association’s secretary general and treasurer.
Said’s association is suspected of receiving foreign funds “to assist sub-Saharan migrants to enter illegally on to Tunisian soil,” according to the government-affiliated newspaper La Presse. One of the primary starting locations for boats transporting individuals attempting to cross the Mediterranean in search of better lives in Europe is Tunisia.
Kais Saied, the president of Tunisia, attacked groups that supported migrant rights in May, accusing their leaders of being “traitors and mercenaries.” In a vote with a mere 28.8% turnout last month, Saied, who has presided over a massive crackdown on undocumented Black residents of Tunisia, was elected to a second term as president.
Under a deal signed last year, the EU has given Tunisia substantial financial support in return for assistance in reducing small boat crossings to Europe.
According to Ben Amor, this was the first time that authorities had targeted organizations that focused on immigration-related matters with anti-terrorist investigators. Following a crackdown in May, he said the arrest was “a dangerous signal” and part of “a new wave of even tougher repression” against migration activists.
The Guardian reported in 2023 that Tunisian officers had forcibly returned thousands of people from sub-Saharan Africa to isolated desert areas, where some of them perished from starvation. A Guardian investigation last month exposed abuses committed by EU-funded security forces in Tunisia, including claims that the country’s national guard members were beating and raping migrant women.
“Abdallah Said is incarcerated as part of a policy of criminalizing solidarity with migrants, which has resulted in numerous arrests and ongoing prosecutions in cases for which no hearings have yet been scheduled,” the Committee for the Respect of Liberties and Human Rights in Tunisia stated in a note issued over the weekend.