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Thousands of people marched through the Tunisian capital on Saturday, denouncing the increasing repression of opposition voices and rising inflation, as the country’s largest union called on President Kaïs Said to accept “dialogue.”
The march organized by Tunisia’s powerful trade union center was the latest challenge to Tunisian President Kaïs Said, whose actions are causing growing international concern.
Since taking office in October 2019, Said has consolidated his power, dismantled the country’s democratic gains and unleashed a crackdown on migrants from other parts of Africa.
In the biggest crackdown since the president’s rise to power, police have arrested around 20 prominent political figures in the past two weeks, mainly opponents of Said.
“Freedom, freedom, down with the police state,” chanted the protesters at the march held in Tunis on Saturday, in which they also called for “the end of impoverishment” in the North African country.
sentence to arrests
UGTT chief Noureddine Taboubi accused the president of targeting the powerful union as part of a broader crackdown on critics.
Taboubi condemned the latest wave of arrests and the imprisonment since February of Anis Kaabi, a senior UGTT official for highway workers, arrested after a strike by toll gate employees.
“We will never accept such detentions,” Taboubi told the protesters.
The UGTT has about a million members and shared the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize with three other civil society groups for promoting national dialogue in the country of some 12 million people.
Said questioned the motives of the organizers of Saturday’s march and denounced the UGTT’s decision to invite foreign union leaders to the protest as “unacceptable.”
The general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation was declared persona non grata in Tunisia after taking part in a demonstration last month. On Thursday, Tunisian border police turned away a Spanish union leader.
“Tunisia is not a farm, a meadow or a land without a master. Anyone who wants to demonstrate is free to do so, but they do not have to invite foreigners to participate,” Said declared on the eve of Saturday’s march.
no to racism
Taboubi urged Said to embrace “dialogue” and “democratic” paths, criticizing the president for pursuing a “violent discourse… that is dividing the country.”
The head of the UGTT also defended “the rights of immigrants, regardless of their nationality or the color of their skin.”
“Tunisia is a country of tolerance, not racism,” he told the crowd.
Last month, Said ordered authorities to take “urgent action” against irregular immigration, claiming, without evidence, that “a criminal plot” was underway to “change the demographic makeup of Tunisia.”
Saturday’s rally came as some 300 West African migrants in Tunisia were preparing to be repatriated, fearing a spate of attacks on sub-Saharan migrants since Said’s comments.
Ivory Coast and Guinea sent planes on Saturday to evacuate their citizens, who were under attack as Tunisian authorities stepped up detentions of migrants. Some sub-Saharans have slept in tents outside the UN migration office in Tunis seeking protection.
Taboubi also criticized the negotiations between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Tunisia, which is torn between crippling inflation and a debt equivalent to 80% of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Tunisia is seeking a nearly $2 billion rescue package from the IMF, which makes any aid conditional on a series of reforms.
Taboubi stated that the UGTT is unaware of the “details of the proposals” from the Tunisian authorities, but stressed that the union is totally opposed to any removal of public subsidies for basic products such as food and fuel.
Tunisian authorities have banned another protest, scheduled for Sunday by the Islamist National Salvation Front, calling it a “threat to public security.” Islamist leaders called on their supporters to take to the streets anyway.
*Article adapted from its original in English
With AP and AFP
