Tunisian President Kais Said confirmed on Tuesday that “urgent measures” must be taken to stop the flow of illegal migrants from Africa into his country, given that this phenomenon leads to “violence and crime.” beginning of this century in order to change the demographic composition” to Tunisia” for the “settlement of illegal migrants from Africa”. immigrants, and this month Tunisian authorities arrested dozens of arrivals in Tunisia. He called for a quick end to the influx of large numbers of illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa into his country, calling the phenomenon a conspiracy to “change the demographic composition” in Tunisia.
Said said during a meeting of the Tunisian National Security Council dedicated to discussing this issue: “The undeclared goal of successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia only an African country, not belonging to the Arab and Islamic nations.
At this meeting, the President of Tunisia specifically highlighted the influx of “mobs of illegal migrants” that this leads to “violence, crimes and unacceptable acts, in addition to criminalization under the law.” put an end to this phenomenon quickly.”
Said called for “work at all diplomatic, security and military levels, strict enforcement of the law relating to the status of foreigners in Tunisia, and secret border crossings.”
Said’s remarks came days after more than 20 Tunisian human rights organizations condemned what they called “hate speech” against sub-Saharan African migrants, and NGOs called on Tunisian authorities to combat “hate speech, discrimination and and racism” on social media and in some media.
The organizations accused some political parties of hate speech and political propaganda with the assistance of local authorities.
For his part, Ramadan Benomar, a spokesman for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, called the decision racist, telling Reuters: “This is a racist approach, similar to campaigns in Europe… The purpose of the presidential campaign is to create an imaginary enemy for Tunisians to distract them from their main problems.”
Tunisia is a major transit point for migrants and refugees seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, including a growing number of Tunisians and citizens of other African countries.
