Migrants’ rights workers forced out of Tunisia in latest crackdown

Until the beginning of this year, Tunisia was a relatively safe space for civil society organisations supporting migrants. Many of those organisations were first set up in Libya, but harassment and allegations from the Libyan authorities and non-state actors had forced them to relocate west along the north African shoreline.

Now those groups, and the members who carry out their crucial work, are being forced out of Tunisia as well.

I’m a researcher in Italy for the project ‘SHUT-MED: securitising human transit across the central Mediterranean migratory corridor’. I recently met with several civil society actors to find out how Tunisia’s border strategy – heavily influenced by its cooperation with the EU – is affecting migrants and those advocating for migrants’ rights.

The people I spoke to told me about colleagues who had been imprisoned on accusations of ‘money laundering’ and other financial crimes, how their organisations were forced to cease operations, and how they themselves had to flee the country.

In July 2023, the EU pledged up to €1 billion in aid to Tunisia, including €105 million for border management, as part of a new EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding. Earlier this year, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni offered at least €50 million in direct support to Tunisia, along with other financial packages, as part of an increasingly expensive project to clamp down on irregular migration to Italy.

Just a month later, in May 2024, Tunisian authorities conducted an “unprecedented repressive clampdown” against migrants, refugees, human rights defenders and journalists. This came after months of racialised violence against foreigners in the country.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have raised concerns about “backsliding” rights in the country and urged EU leaders to centre human rights in their cooperation with Tunisia. But as European states themselves target people on the move and solidarity actors – many of them simply for crossing borders – criminalisation campaigns are continuing to ramp up in countries of transit or departure like Tunisia.

Pushed out of Tunisia

Souad (a pseudonym), used to work for a Libyan association supporting refugees and migrants. Her organisation moved from western Libya to Tunis, the Tunisian capital, several years ago after being subject to intimidation and attacks to their offices by non-state actors. While things were calm in their new base for a while, similar attacks and threats eventually forced her to leave Tunisia as well.

“We were operating on the ground with mobile clinics and surgeons, to provide initial assistance, both in Libya and Tunisia,” she said. “In Tunis, we were meeting with Tunisian and European associations to understand how to best support civil societies in Libya to assist migrants who aren’t getting the support they need right now.”

Souad was finally pushed to leave when the Tunisian authorities escalated a policy of intimidating and arresting civil society actors and migrants. As a Libyan woman and a member of a migrants’ rights organisation, she was a target in more ways than one.

“Now the safest strategy for us as associations is to move to Europe,” said Souad. That’s where her organisation is now based, although she won’t say precisely where, for fear of further repercussions.

We have been accused of money laundering. Now, even some councillors and mayors are in prison

Rachid (a pseudonym) is a Tunisian who worked to support stranded migrants in Tunisia for two years. He and his colleagues helped documented and undocumented people living in shelters and occasionally assisted people to cover hospital fees – particularly women who have just given birth.

Local organisations like his were crucial for the survival and support of vulnerable groups in Tunisia. They played a key role in delivering assistance for mainly Black African migrant communities by acting as intermediaries between international humanitarian donors, local authorities and the local community, and by providing essential aid and resources.

“After February 2023, we were frequently being asked, ‘if you are humanitarian organisations, why aren’t you helping Tunisians?’” Rachid said. “[Since then], we have been accused of money laundering, and these accusations by national authorities have also targeted some of the municipal councils we were working with. Now, even some councillors and mayors are in prison,” he told me.

Like Souad, Rachid is no longer living in Tunisia. The civil society organisation he worked with has been dismantled and many of his colleagues are in prison.

An authoritarian partner for migration control

Tunisia’s president Kais Saied was democratically elected in 2019. Two years later, in the summer of 2021, he suspended parliament and assumed all executive power. In March 2022, he formally dissolved the country’s parliament and soon after adopted a new constitution which “reversed nearly a decade of democratic gains”.

As Saied consolidated power in Tunisia, migration became a key issue in relations with the EU. By 2023, Tunisia had overtaken Libya as the main departure point for migrants heading to Italy. The EU responded by sending more funds to Tunisia to ‘manage’ the situation on its behalf.

In February 2023, Saied initiated a crackdown on sub-Saharan Africans in the country. During a national security council, he claimed that “hordes of illegal migrants” were in Tunisia to cause “violence, crime and unacceptable acts”, and this was part of a “criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape in Tunisia”.

It didn’t take long for the accusations to filter down into repressive action. In May 2024, Tunisian authorities arrested, targeted and investigated the leaders, former staff, and members of at least 12 organisations on vague accusations of “financial crimes” related to providing aid to migrants and asylum seekers. Journalists were also arrested and put on trial.

Civil society organisations were particularly under fire. In an address, Saied described these organisations as “traitors”, “[foreign] agents” and “rabid trumpets driven by foreign wages”. He said that criticism of the state constituted treason. These remarks came shortly after he met with counterparts from Italy, Algeria, and Libya to discuss irregular migration and border management in Rome.

Refugees and migrants have also faced brutal treatment at the hands of authorities. Security forces intensified unlawful deportations, conducted forced evictions and arrested landlords for renting to migrants without permits. Reports surfaced of people being rounded up and “dumped” in the desert at the border to Algeria, a practice that appears to have become systematic since 2023.

The EU’s agreement with Tunisia sparked intense criticism over legal safeguards of human rights

Saied has had good reason for wanting to fabricate an enemy. The economy has been spiralling down in recent years, propelled by political unrest, the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine and Saeid’s own resistance to accept IMF financing as a way out. Since 2020, public debt has soared to 81% of GDP. In such a context, migrants travelling to and through the country make an easy scapegoat – despite their presence having nothing to do with the rising debt and poverty.

All the while, the EU has continued to cooperate with Tunisia on migration. It signed a “Memorandum of Understanding on a strategic and comprehensive partnership” with the country in July 2023, with €105 million earmarked for “border management”. The agreement, which sparked intense criticism over legal safeguards of human rights by the European Parliament legal service and the EU Ombudsman, remains in effect.

This amount was promised in addition to the €144 million that had already been allocated for ‘migration security’ in October 2023. These funds come from the EU’s Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) fund, the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), and the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF). The support includes equipment and capacity building for Tunisian law enforcement agencies, Tunisian coast guard and navy.

In addition to the funding packages, Tunisia was also handed greater responsibility for rescues at sea. In June 2024, Tunisia’s search and rescue region, the area where it is primarily responsible for rescuing people in distress at sea, was extended with the support of the European Commission.

Several human rights and rescue groups have since raised concerns about the decision, citing “violent and dangerous behaviour” on the part of the Tunisian coast guard. They point out that, similar to its cooperation with Libya, European engagement with Tunisia threatens to normalise grave violations against people seeking protection and undermine the integrity of the international search and rescue system by manipulating it for migration control.

Souad, Rachid and other members of targeted organisations I spoke to are deeply worried about the situation, and remain anxious about the fate of their peers still in the country, particularly those still in prison.

“We witnessed the closure of numerous associations in Tunisia,” said Souad. “Their leaders were pursued and imprisoned. After February 2023, the country became increasingly hostile for organisations focused on migrants’ rights, and we were seen as potentially undermining the government’s efforts to control migration.”

Rachid added that many of these organisations were “accused of facilitating irregular migration” – although those accusations often morphed into charges of a different kind, as members were taken to prisons and local police offices for “long hours of interrogations on charges of money laundering”.

Backsliding on rights for everyone

Tunisia has been described as “producing” irregular migrants – through opaque laws and procedures which make it difficult to get proper documentation, and which long pre-date the latest crackdown. Instability in the country is nothing new for refugees, migrants, and the people working to support them. But a series of sudden shifts over the past two years has drastically escalated things and put many in extreme danger.

Tunisia was the only country to overthrow its authoritarian leader and start building a democracy after the 2011 uprisings that happened across the Arab world. Many commentators say that democratic work was largely undone in the following decade – and the local population’s expectations for European support to grow its civil society and democratic processes have remained largely unfulfilled.

Instead, the gaps in support have been plugged by EU financing with an agenda: migration control. This agenda has been pursued at all costs, bypassing legal obligations on human rights principles, foreign nationals and the right to asylum. The EU’s efforts to externalise its border regime place it far beyond complicity in this case. Rather, it appears to be endorsing an authoritarian crackdown consisting of arbitrary detention, mass expulsions, and “dumping in the desert”.

The criminalisation of migrants and solidarity actors is harmful to both those targeted and society as a whole – whether it occurs in Tunisia or in a European state. Ultimately, it damages efforts to support vulnerable groups requesting their right to asylum and protection, and threatens everyone’s right to freedom of movement, and the pursuit of a better life.

Explore the rest of the series

This series looks at how the UK, EU and bordering countries are increasingly treating migration as a criminal offence, and targeting migrants and solidarity actors in the name of ‘anti-smuggling’ and ‘border control’.