The Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised its tone on Saturday, February 25, 2023, following the statement by the African Union (AU) which called on Tunisia to refrain from any racist hate speech.
The chairman of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, had indeed strongly condemned “the shocking statements made by the Tunisian authorities against fellow Africans”. The permanent representative of Tunisia accredited to the African Union had been received by AU leaders in order to express the serious concerns of the organization “as to the form and content of the declaration targeting African compatriots, notwithstanding their legal status in the country”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its astonishment, rejecting the AU’s “unfounded” statements and accusations “especially since they are based on a misunderstanding of the position of the Tunisian authorities”.
The department said it regretted “the unwarranted and incomprehensible confusion in this statement between legal African immigrants who live in peace under the protection of the laws of the Tunisian state, and groups of illegals exploited by human trafficking networks”.
The ministry thus called on the African Union not to allow itself to be drawn into “bidding and accusations made by parties motivated by various designs which are not in the interest of the African peoples”.
A great controversy erupted after the declarations made by the President of the Republic, Kaïs Saïed who evoked “a criminal plan prepared since the beginning of this century to transform the demographic composition of Tunisia”, adding that “certain parts have received large sums of money after 2011, for the establishment of irregular sub-Saharan immigrants in Tunisia. The unannounced objective of the successive waves of clandestine migration being to consider Tunisia as an African state with no Arab or Islamic affiliation”. Presidential statements have fueled racist campaigns targeting sub-Saharans.
In response, Tunisian civil society mobilized. An Antifascist Front has been founded and a demonstration is planned for Saturday February 25, 2023 under the slogan: “Down with fascism, Tunisia is an African land”.
