 Over the past few days, news reports have emerged of the brutal treatment of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries in Tunisia. Now this culminated in the expulsion of a number of migrants from the country into the border lands between Tunisia and Libya, into patched desert territory where the migrants really struggled. There were lots of reports of very intense human rights violations by armed forces. But this is not an isolated incident. In fact, the trend of violence as well as racist behavior towards migrants has been building up for months. So to talk more about this, we have with us Fadil Ali Reza, who is the founder and editor-in-chief of Mechgal, a media platform. Fadil, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Right, Fadil. So maybe let's start with the immediate aspect. But before that, I'll also go to February, where I believe President Qaiz Said made some very disparaging and almost violent remarks where he said that the migrants would come to Tunisia from sub-Saharan African countries were part of some demographic change project he seemed to imply. And this is very familiar dog whistle politics across the world. And reports say that since then, there has been an uptick in incidents of violence against migrants from many of these countries. So maybe, Fadil, could you first take us through the past few months and the kind of incident that what led to the incidents in the city of Safax? Yeah, sure. So the February speech by President Qaiz Said was he was actually mirroring some of the rhetoric we've seen from European politicians of this sort of great replacement theory. So the idea was implying that, in fact, foreign-funded NGOs had this conspiracy to bring black migrants from other parts of Africa to change Tunisia's demography from one that is African to, from one that is Arab to one that is more African. This is purely not true because there's actually very few migrants as a percentage from other African countries. Some of them are students. Many of them had come to study in Tunisia. Many of them are just there waiting until they can make the trip to Europe. All of them are just passing through Tunisia, are not settling in Tunisia. But nonetheless, this rhetoric really saw a spike, a real spike in violence. We saw, in fact, authorities had even said that they would go after Tunisians who were renting their homes to black migrants, quote, unquote, illegally. But of course, it's very difficult, almost impossible to get a residence permit or to be there illegally in Tunisia because the processes are made so difficult. And as a result of that, you had people kicking migrants out of their homes. We saw a lot of them ending up in the streets, camping out in front of the international organizations, UN organizations like the IOM, the UN Refugee Council. And in fact, we didn't see a lot of help from those either. So these were people who really seemed to be abandoned by everyone, even their own governments, as many of their own governments were unable to or did not manage to do enough in terms of repatriation. There were some Tunisians who protested at the time. There was quite a large protest in the capital of Tunis. There have been some organizations to try and help migrants who've been kicked out left on the streets, really lacking in food and shelter. But at the same time, particularly in the city of Svec, we saw things getting much worse because really a central point in the path towards Europe is where a lot of the boat making is to make the boats that go across the Mediterranean. And we've started to see increasing mob violence, really, from Tunisians who are blaming migrants after this speech, really, that basically gave a green light to some of the violence where they've seen. The Tunisians have said that they think that these migrants pose a security threat, that they really adhere to this conspiracy theory, this racist conspiracy theory that the president espoused. And so in May, there was actually a migrant who was killed from Benin in Svex. And then just a couple of weeks ago or less than a couple of weeks ago, there was a Tunisian man who was killed in clashes with migrants. So this is really where we've seen the confrontations escalate when we've gotten to this moment today. Right. Father, we'll talk to you about KSI and his policies before and how he's sort of Tunisian, some ways ground to a halt in various ways, especially economically, ever since he's conducted a school. So what in some senses prompted this kind of such a racist speech, targeting what is clearly a very vulnerable population, like you said. It's not that it's one small population, also quite economically, not necessarily the most well off. So why was this speech targeted at these migrants? Well, there's speculation that this is tied to the deteriorating economic situation in Tunisia, the fact that we're seeing increasing shortages of certain goods in supermarkets that are really a result of the fact that Tunisia has been cut off from international financial markets. Their credit ratings have been lowered by credit ratings agencies. As a result of that, it's become much more difficult to import goods. Unfortunately, Tunisia is dependent on basic goods, including wheat, you know, very strategic food stuff, but even other things like we've seen shortages of government subsidized cooking oil, for example, sugar, coffee. So basic goods that people need in their everyday lives have seen shortages. And, you know, President Kaysai had come in with these promises of really having, you know, sort of fixing some of the economic problems that had been fostered under what was really a sort of the last ten years where neoliberal policies were really enacted. And in fact, things have gotten worse as there's really been a squeeze on Tunisia. There's an IMF loan that they've been negotiating, it's been going back and forth. There have been certain conditions for this, including austerity policies and increased austerity policies. The president in terms of rhetoric has seemed to reject these, but that doesn't solve the underlying economic crisis or even the financial challenges that Tunisia is going through. And so these are certainly playing into the fact that, you know, people are seeing, you know, their livelihoods become more expensive, inflation is going up. And now when you have rhetoric sort of blaming this other who is in Tunisia, then we do see unfortunately some of this violence filtering out to basically these vulnerable migrants who are in Tunisia. At the same time, the President Kaysai has really been trying to get better terms, it seems, from the IMF. And so he's been having developing relations with closer relations with the Italian far-right Prime Minister, Giorgio Maldoni, who actually made several visits now or at least two visits very recently to Tunisia. And she came with the President of the EU Commission and basically offering more money, but very specifically talking about migration and using Tunisia to control migration within its borders. And we've also seen the EU through a special fund giving hundreds of millions of euros per year to control migration within Tunisia. So in fact, the Union authorities are really controlling migration within its own borders and fortunately with a lot of violence that seems to be in many ways what people have said is an extension of EU's borders and border control in Tunisia. Right. So in this context, that was the next question I wanted to ask you because I think 100 million was specifically assigned for border control when the EU leaders visited. But how does this tie in with how Tunisia has been treating the question of migration itself? We know that recently there have been a couple of incidents of boats in which migrants were traveling. They sank, a number of people died. And there were also reports in many of these cases that Tunisian authorities had actually not helped the migrants at all. In fact, removed the engines from some of the boats. That's what some of the NGOs were saying. So what has Tunisia's record in general been when dealing with migrants, for instance, who are looking to go towards Europe? Yeah. And we've even heard speculation that this has been the case of the Tunisian Coast Guard doing this even to Tunisians who are trying to migrate to Europe. So I believe it was last September. There was a boat that left from Zaziz where there was even children on board and who died. And then the bodies were found by authorities and they were buried in secret. And they didn't tell the families, which led to quite a lot of speculation that in fact the Tunisian Coast Guard may have had a role in the sinking of that ship. And there was extreme anger at that time. That was one of the biggest sort of protests we've seen against President Kaysayed since his centralization and taking up all full powers just a couple of years ago. But there was attempts even as early as 2016-2017 by the EU to have Tunisia be a center for processing migrants, for processing asylum seekers, excuse me, on Tunisian territory. At the time, the Prime Minister then, Yusuf Sheher had said that they would not be Europe's border guards. Yet we've seen increasing funding both on a multilateral basis from the EU over the last couple of years, not just the funding you mentioned that was promised in June, but even before that, there was annual funding through this special EU, I think it's called the Africa Emergency Fund for controlling migration domestically. We've also seen bilateral funding coming from the Italians for Tunisia's Coast Guard and beefing that up and basically playing the same role that Frontex, the European border guard, maritime border guard agency is doing, but on Tunisian coasts. Now the latest news we've heard is that because of sort of the crisis on the border with Libya, there has been reports of some of them being repatriated to Tunisian towns near the border. And if that's the case, that's good news because these people were really in desperate situation. Not only were they saying that they had been the victims of violence by Tunisian authorities who had transported them there, but they were also lacking water in extremely high heat temperatures during this time of the year. Right. Father, also finally, just to look at in terms of how Tunisian civil society, how organizations have responded, what do they sort of put, what kind of demands are they presenting or what is the kind of agenda that is being put forward to actually deal with what is clearly a complicated issue, an issue that has come up in many countries and is being used by the right across to sort of polarize and divide society. Yeah, unfortunately we've seen some of the representatives of UN agencies who are responsible for North Africa and Tunisia are parroting some of the right-wing discourse of European politicians where they're saying, in fact, that these people should not be leaving their countries on the way to Europe. Some of them may be seeking only economic benefits and not necessarily escaping from war. Of course, freedom of movement is something that's enshrined in UN principles. So it's very strange to see UN officials using this discourse rather than really standing up for the right to free movement as enshrined in many principles. So that's been unfortunate and we've also seen that reflected in the policy. I mean, we've seen that the IOM office reports that they had actually asked Tunisian authorities to clear migrants who are camping out in front of their offices in Tunis. So rather than helping them, they're actually saying that these are a nuisance for having camped out in front of their offices. So really, like I said earlier, this seems to be that they've been abandoned by everyone, not just the Tunisian authorities, but also international authorities. Now, there have been some attempts by, excuse me, Tunisians to civil society to help. They were not able to go to the border zone. They were saying that this is a military zone that the Tunisian military controls. However, other people were also saying maybe they need to make a stronger effort to challenge that as well. That said, there are limits to what Tunisian civil society organizations can do, especially when they're facing the threat of also facing prosecution from Tunisian authorities who are saying that these migrants have no place in the country and anyone who helps them is also going to be subject to prosecution. Thank you so much, Father, for speaking to us, for giving us a very, I think, comprehensive update on a very troubling situation. And I think really the Tunisian authorities, like you said, have quite a lot to answer for in this situation. Thank you so much for talking to us. It's my pleasure. Thank you. And that's all we have time for today. We'll be returning to similar issues in future videos and episodes of People's Dispatch. Do keep watching.