Tunisian president denounces racism accusation after migrant crackdown

Many migrants stated they had been attacked, together with being pelted with stones by gangs of youths of their neighbourhoods, and rights teams stated police had been sluggish to answer such assaults.

Tunis ,UPDATED: Mar 6, 2023 10:16 IST

Ivory Coast nationals dwelling in Tunisia and searching for repatriation, wait outdoors the embassy of Ivory Coast in Tunis (Reuters)

By Reuters:

Tunisia’s president denounced racism on Sunday and pointed to doable authorized penalties for perpetrators 10 days after saying a crackdown on unlawful migration utilizing language the African Union condemned as “racialised hate speech”.

During an announcement on February 21 telling safety forces to expel all unlawful immigrants, President Kais Saied known as migration a conspiracy to alter Tunisia’s demographics by making it extra African and fewer Arab.

Police detained lots of of migrants, landlords summarily evicted lots of from their properties and lots of of others have been fired from work, rights teams say.

Many migrants stated that they had been attacked, together with being pelted with stones by gangs of youths of their neighbourhoods, and rights teams stated police had been sluggish to answer such assaults.

While Saied denied racism in an announcement on February 23, he repeated his view of immigration as a demographic plot. Before Sunday, Saied had not publicly warned of any authorized penalties for the assaults.

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In Sunday’s assertion, he described the accusations of racism as a marketing campaign in opposition to the nation “from known sources”, with out elaborating.

But he added that Tunisia was honoured to be an African nation and introduced a rest of visa guidelines for African residents, permitting stays of as much as six months as a substitute of three with out searching for residency, and of a yr for college students.

He stated migrants who had overstayed may depart with out penalty after a lot of these authorities sought to deport had confirmed unable to pay fines for late stays.

He painted his crackdown on unlawful migration as being a marketing campaign in opposition to human trafficking and pointed to a legislation handed in 2018 in opposition to discrimination to say that any verbal or bodily assaults on foreigners can be prosecuted.

Opposition events and rights teams have stated Saied’s crackdown on immigrants, which coincided with arrests of senior opposition figures, was geared toward distracting from Tunisia’s financial disaster.

Saied seized most powers in 2021, shutting down the elected parliament, transferring to rule by decree and rewriting the structure, steps his foes together with the principle political events name a coup.

He has stated his actions have been authorized and wanted to avoid wasting Tunisia from chaos.

Published On:

Mar 6, 2023