As African migrants are swept up in a widening crackdown, critics say President Kais Saied is openly mining a deep vein of discrimination and prejudice against dark-skinned people in Tunisia.
President Kais Saied’s war on speculation is attempting to direct the focus of people’s anger about food shortages onto speculators. A recent emergency importation of grain has stayed off the emptying of shelves, but as the country’s treasury empties and eventually products begin to disappear from stores again, the people's patience and faith in his new political project will wear very thin. For now, he is profiting from national exhaustion, but how long till hunger becomes anger and anger becomes a movement?
Tunisian authorities have opened criminal investigations against at least 20 members of the now-dissolved parliament who took part in an online plenary session convened by parliamentarians on 30 March to protest President Kais Saied’s power grab.
A Tunisian court yesterday sentenced parliamentarian Yassine Ayari in absentia to four months in prison for offending others on social media . The case against Ayari rested on a complaint file.