For the NGO, the Meloni government, obsessed with the migration issue, wants to help Kais Saied economically despite human rights violations in Tunisia
“In attempting to prevent departures to Europe, Italy is offering aid to the Tunisian government without demanding greater respect for human rights, at the risk of strengthening the position of an increasingly repressive leader and fuel ever more serious human rights abuses.”
Amnesty International’s assertion, following the visit of the President of the Italian Council, Giorgia Meloni, on June 6 to Tunis, is unequivocal.
The NGO recalls that the Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi went to Tunis on May 15, “carrying the promise of the Italian government to continue to provide the Tunisian government with the means and resources to patrol along the coasts. This visit constitutes one more step on the slippery slope in which the government of Giorgia Meloni has embarked”.
The Italian government, according to Amnesty, “concerned by the increasing number of arrivals by sea from Tunisia and obsessed with the idea of reversing the trend, is continuing its diplomatic action to convince the international financial institutions and any government in a position to finance the regime of Kais Saied, while turning a blind eye to its draconian measures”.
Since February, notes the NGO, Giorgia Meloni and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani “have spoken publicly or privately to ask the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the United States to make funds available”.
“Thus, the Italian government does not limit itself to supplying speedboats to the Tunisian coast guard – twelve have already been delivered and four are expected to arrive shortly. He is doing everything possible to help Kais Saied get out of the financial impasse in which he has led his country, ”continues Amnesty.
But “the problem is that, to prevent the departure of refugees and migrants from the Tunisian coasts, Italy closes its eyes to the violence stirred up by the Tunisian authorities”.
“The same strategy as in Libya”
On February 21, Tunisian President Kais Saied gave an extremely harsh speech calling for “urgent measures” against the illegal immigration of sub-Saharan Africans to his country, saying that their presence was a source of “violence and crimes” and insisting on “the need to quickly end” this immigration.
He also argued that this illegal immigration was part of a “criminal enterprise hatched at the dawn of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia”, in order to transform it into an “African only” country and blur its ” Arab-Muslim”.
This discourse, according to Amnesty, “led to a wave of racially motivated attacks against black people in Tunisia”. And to cite the case of Manuela D, a 22-year-old Cameroonian refugee, who told Amnesty International that she was “attacked outside a bar by six men who tied her up and stabbed her, inflicting serious injuries chest, stomach and face.
“Many other people have been driven from their homes and their belongings stolen. Local organizations have collected information on hundreds of arrests, deportations and violence against black people, including migrants, students or asylum seekers,” Amnesty said.
The Meloni government’s strategy, according to Amnesty, “reuses the same strategy as in Libya [ignoring in passing the recent United Nations report which highlights its co-responsibility in crimes against humanity committed in Libya] and exposed to the blackmail of an ever more repressive regime.”
In particular, “the continued violation of the rights of refugees and migrants, in a country that does not have asylum laws but has one to criminalize homosexuality, could contribute directly to increasing the number of departures”, continues the NGO, which describes the approach of the government of Giorgia Meloni as “ill-advised, in addition to being deeply immoral, even illegal”.
The Italian government “should condition its support on taking resolute and concrete measures to restore the rule of law, to put an end to attacks on freedom of expression and political opponents, and to fight against all forms of discrimination and violence,” concludes Amnesty.
Ahmed Nejib Chebbi targeted
Dozens of people, lawyers, activists, politicians, etc. were imprisoned for their opposition to the policy of the Tunisian president, like the leader of Ennahdha, Rached Ghannouchi, sentenced on May 15 to one year in prison for “apology for terrorism”.
Other Ennahdha executives suffered the same fate, such as Sahbi Atig, a member of the Choura Council, the deliberative body of the Ennahdha party, whose health deteriorated in prison following his hunger strike.
Ahmed Mechergui, 54, a member of its leadership and former deputy, also began a hunger strike on Sunday to protest against his imprisonment on April 18.
Another of the leaders of Ennahdha, Youssef Nouri, arrested on April 19, has been on hunger strike since April 25 to “contest the conditions of his detention and the non-respect of his fundamental rights”.
Yesterday Wednesday, a Tunisian media indicated that the lawyer and leader of the National Salvation Front (FSN), Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, had been summoned by the judicial counter-terrorism unit for this Friday, within the framework of an alleged plot against security. of State.
“I was to be auditioned at the same time as the group comprising Ayachi Hammami, Kamel Jendoubi and Bochra Belhaj Hmida, but the judge finally decided to direct the prosecution towards me. So I’m going to go and I’m ready for all eventualities, ”reacted Ahmed Nejib Chebbi.
“Either I will go home [after the hearing], or I will join my brother and the other activists who have been [detained] in [the prison of] El Mornaguia for four months. I don’t know anything about my fate because we are no longer in a rule of law but under the reign of arbitrariness. I knew that well, I was never afraid of it and nothing has changed,” he said.
