Amnesty International (AI) has called on the government of Tunisia to ensure an end to the wave of attacks against black African migrants across Tunisia.
Development Diaries reports that the attacks started in early February and accelerated following perceived racist and xenophobic comments made by President Kais Saied on 21 February.
AI, in a statement, demanded that the authorities investigate and hold perpetrators to account, including, in particular, where police officers were involved in the assault.
President Saied had declared migrants from other parts of Africa as pawns in a ‘criminal plot’ to make his predominantly Arab and Muslim nation ‘a purely African country’.
He made the comments during a national security council meeting on 21 February, triggering an upsurge in anti-Black racist violence.
There were reports of mobs taking to the streets and attacking Black migrants, students and asylum seekers, and police officers detaining and deporting scores.
Rights groups in the country reported that a few days after the presiednt’s comments, workers and students from sub-Saharan Africa were fired, thrown out of their homes, banned from public transportation and assaulted.
This has resulted in many black Africans fleeing their homes in Tunisia to escape state-sanctioned attacks.
Freedom House ranked Tunisia as ‘partly free’ in its 2023 Freedom in the World report on political rights and civil liberties, with the Maghreb country earning 64 points out of a possible 100.
Development Diaries calls on the Tunisian government to respect its commitments to the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples as well as its obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, which Tunisia adopted in 1957.
We also call on Tunisia to abide by its own laws, being the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to criminalise racial discrimination.
Source: Amnesty International
Photo source: DW
