At the call of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
Twenty people protested in the capital, Tunis, against the visit of the President of the Italian Council, Giorgia Meloni, to Tunisia, noted on Tuesday, the correspondent of Anadolu.
The protest rally organized at the call of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (Ftdes, non-governmental organization), under the slogan “Meloni you are not welcome in Tunisia”, was held on the forecourt of the Municipal Theater, located on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the main artery of downtown Tunis.
The protesters held up placards and banners reading: “Giorgia Meloni, persona non grata”, “Better to be a pig than a fascist”, “Truth for the mothers of missing migrants, dignity for migrants“, “Migration is a right” “Stop the hunt for migrants”.
Ftdes spokesperson Romdhane Ben Amor said that “The visit of the Italian Prime Minister to Tunisia is part of the same logic of the policies of pressure and blackmail exercised by the European Union against Tunis”.
“Giorgia Meloni is not welcome in Tunisia, because the Italian official embodies anti-migrant policies in Italy, which impose restrictions and prevent the work of NGOs that want to help migrants in the Mediterranean. It is still Meloni who promulgates the decrees which aim to tighten the noose on irregular migrants in Italy, and it is still her who pleads for the refoulement of Tunisian migrants who have arrived in Italy,” explained Ben Amor.
And to add: “Giorgia Meloni violates the rights and undermines the dignity of all migrants, particularly Tunisian migrants detained in detention centers who are victims of abuse, although the European Court of Human Rights condemned its violations”.
The spokesperson for the NGO responsible for migration issues asks the Tunisian government not to give in to Rome’s blackmail.
“We demand that the negotiation process with Italy and the other EU countries be fair, that it can translate real sovereignty, a sovereignty that respects the rights and dignity of migrants, a sovereignty that makes it possible to break totally with the role of border guard of Europe endorsed by Tunisia. Sovereignty is being able to negotiate as equals with Meloni,” added Romdhane Ben Amor.
For his part, Imed Soltani, president of the “Terre pour tous” association, underlined that “President Kaïs Saïed must understand that Rome only defends its own interests. We must not believe in the promises of Italy; ‘we are going to support Tunisia’, ‘we are going to help Tunisia’, ‘we are partners’”.
Calling on Saïed, Soltani declared: “President, we have already told you and repeated it: no to negotiations with Italy (…) Meloni is in no way seeking to help Tunisia, nor to save its economy, but it maneuvers to negotiate a more criminal, more racist immigration agreement, which will lead to even more deaths and disappearances”.
The president of the “Terre pour tous” association, personally affected by a migratory tragedy – two of his relatives had disappeared in 2013 while trying to reach Italy illegally via the Mediterranean – estimated that “The EU has declared war on migrants”, adding that all aid policies promoted by Rome and the EU, aimed at Tunisia, are “pure lies”.
“Every day there are dead and missing people in the Mediterranean, but the EU and Italy are turning a blind eye. Meloni is the extreme right, she cannot convince us that she is on the side of migrants, nor on the side of Tunis, she only defends the interests of Rome,” he insisted.
And Soltani to continue: “We say ”no” to agreements of shame which declare war on migrants, we want to know the truth about our loved ones who have disappeared at sea since 2011″.
The President of the Italian Council is on Tuesday making a “friendship and work” visit to Tunisia, at the invitation of Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, according to a press release from the Tunisian presidency.
Saïed had mentioned, Friday, during a telephone conversation with Meloni, the organization of an “international conference to deal with the question of irregular migration”.
Some areas of the Tunisian coast are less than 150 km from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Tunisia has experienced a remarkable increase in irregular migratory flows towards Europe since the beginning of 2023, particularly towards the Italian coasts, in the light of the repercussions of the economic and political crises in the country and the armed conflicts which are ravaging several other African countries.
As a reminder, more than 36,000 people have arrived in Italy via the Mediterranean since the start of the year, compared to around 9,000 during the same period in 2022, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
Faced with the growing influx of migrants, Rome had decreed, last April, a state of migratory emergency for six months.
