With migrants as national scapegoats, Tunisian press faces climate of fear

Increased censorship and propaganda hinder reporting on abuses against Sub-Saharan individuals in Tunisia. While official discourse tries to convince people that migration will change the demographic composition of the country, independent media struggles to give voice to migrants from other parts of Africa.

By Teona Sekhniashvili (edited by Sebnem Adiyaman)

As the Tunisian government lays blame on migrants for the country’s significant economic and political challenges, the local press grapples with the difficulty of confronting racist rhetoric and examining the complexities surrounding issues like immigration.

“Newspapers and television channels [in Tunisia] devote airtime to the latest international and domestic conspiracies intended to destabilize Tunisia. All the while, gaps on supermarket shelves remain, and the long-promised International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout of the country’s economy is as distant a prospect as ever,” Foreign Policy magazine wrote in March, 2023.  

In Tunisia, many media outlets refrain from criticising the government’s policies on the issue or amplifying migrant voices. This lack of diverse viewpoints has the potential to solidify negative public opinion, which is biased against migrants, particularly sub-Saharan individuals. 

“In the media, two lines can be distinguished: public media, which addresses this issue [racism and racist rhetorics against migrants] from the state’s perspective; and private and alternative media, which criticise this hateful discourse and shine a spotlight on the real problems facing Sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia,” Walid Bourouis, Tunisian journalist and communications expert told aidóni. 

“Unfortunately, the ‘official discourse’ is leading the majority of Tunisians to believe that the presence of Sub-Saharans in the country is ‘a criminal plan to change the demographic composition of the country’,” Bourouis said. Despite acknowledging the efforts of civil society to push back, he is not optimistic about the future, adding: “Confronted with this despotic regime, the battle is lost in advance”.

Increasing hostility

Once a beacon of hope for democracy in the Middle East, Tunisia has been undergoing rapid democratic backsliding in recent years. This decline is accompanied by the growing hostility and a surge in attacks against migrants of Sub-Saharan descent. The 21,000 Black migrants in Tunisia, amongst a population of 12 million, have been subject to persistent abuse and harassment, while being largely absent from all domains of public life and lacking access to the labour market, including decision-making positions.

In 2023, documented incidents of violence targeting Black and African migrants increased substantially. In July of that year, over 1,000 migrants were forcibly expelled and left stranded in the desert between Tunisia and Libya, enduring extreme temperatures without having access to basic necessities. The organisation Human Rights Watch reported grave abuses by Tunisian police, military, and coastguard against Black African migrants, including arbitrary detention, torture, forced evictions, use of excessive force, and theft. 

This surge in abuses has been exacerbated by remarks from President Kais Saied, who in February 2023 claimed that immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa aimed to alter Tunisia’s national identity. Saied said that migrants created an “unnatural” situation as part of a criminal plan designed to change the country’s demographic composition, in addition to being a source of crime and violence in the country.

“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 stated in the speech to the National Security Council. Additionally, he called on the security forces to “put an end to this phenomenon.”

The discourse came to the fore amid a worsening financial crisis in Tunisia and the decreasing popularity of President Saied.

Earlier in 2024, the Tunisian Nationalist Party published an online petition demanding the expulsion of Africans from sub-Saharan countries and the imposition of entry visas. This petition, reportedly endorsed by nearly one 1 million people, outlines four key points aimed at tightening restrictions on migrants and repealing anti-discrimination laws.

In May 2024, during what is described as an “unprecedented repressive clampdown against migrants, refugees, and human rights defenders working to protect their rights, as well as journalists” by Amnesty International, the Tunisian government “summoned and investigated the heads, former staff or members of at least 12 organisations over unclear accusations including “financial crimes” for providing aid to migrants, including a Tunisian organisation that works in partnership with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, on supporting asylum seekers through the refugee status determination process in the country.”

Harassment and lawsuits

Press freedom has been rapidly declining in Tunisia. The country was placed 121st among 180 countries in the 2023 Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index, compared to 94th in the previous year. 

From persistent harassment and defamation lawsuits to military trials and detentions, journalists in Tunisia have faced a series of crackdowns and repressive campaigns over the past few years. In 2023, Tunisian authorities jailed journalist Khalifa Guesmi over national security charges. They also raided and searched the home of Noureddine Boutar, the director of the local independent radio station and news website Mosaique FM, and arrested him. Earlier in 2024, the authorities also arrested the Al-Jazeera journalist Samir Sassi on undisclosed charges. 

“Several media outlets have changed their editorial line, even hiring pro-government columnists. There is a climate of fear that prevails and weighs heavily on journalists in Tunisia,” journalist Walid Bourouis said.

The wave of arrests targeting civil society figures, lawyers, and political activists, which started in early May 2024, and is ongoing at the moment of the publication of this article, includes several journalists. Houssem Hajlaoui, co-founder and publisher of local independent news website Inkyfada, was arrested on May 14 over social media posts from 2020-2023. Sonia Dahmani was arrested on charges of spreading false news that undermines public safety and inciting hate speech, Borhen Bssais and Mourad Zghidi were arrested on charges of “publishing news that includes personal data and false news aimed at defamation”.

In the face of mounting repression and deeply ingrained discrimination, independent media outlets in Tunisia keep pushing the envelope, criticising the current government’s policies. They also document and unveil human rights violations committed against migrants. These newsrooms, among others, include independent newsrooms Alqatiba, Nawaa, and radio programmes such as Midi Show of Mosaique FM. 

This article is part of the special series “Tunisia – Land of Passage”, produced by Specto Media and aidóni. Listen to the podcast here.