Racism is a Crime, Solidarity is Not

Racism is not an opinion. It is a crime.
But in Tunisia today, it is people on the move and those who resist racism towards them who are treated like criminals.

Black people and migrants are being targeted with arrests, threats, and smear campaigns. And authorities have turned solidarity with them into something to fear, a dangerous act punished with prison.

Story

Tunisia’s history is full of struggles against slavery, colonization, and dictatorship. Yet today, the government repeats the same patterns of oppression, this time using racism, borders, and prisons to control and divide. It started in February 2023, when President Kais Saied delivered a racist speech that turned societal and structural racism into official state policy, giving the green light to multiple racist and discriminatory practices.

Every day, racist speech and policies push more hatred and violence in Tunisia, from spreading unfounded theories and statistics lies about a “demographic change of the population”, to stirring up feelings of hatred through misleading news and false information under the slogans of national security.

And yet, when people show solidarity, they are targeted:

Saadia Mosbah, a Black feminist leader, is behind bars for defending the rights of Black Tunisians and migrants. Abdallah Saied, a Black activist in Médenine, is detained for helping migrants survive. Sonia Dahmani, a lawyer and radio show host, is jailed for naming racism publicly and criticizing the conditions of prisons in Tunisia. Cherifa Riahi is prosecuted for her humanitarian work with migrants. Rached Tamboura, a calligrapher and painter, paid a heavy price for his dissent: two years in prison for a graffiti tag denouncing the Tunisian president’s racist speeches.

These five are just to name a few of the names we know about. Behind them stand hundreds more, many without the privilege of visibility or “citizenship”. Many Black migrants are also currently detained in Tunisia, all while their families and loved ones are trying to find them or ensure their safety.

Issues

The criminalization of migration and of solidarity with migrants in Tunisia is not an accident. It is a tool.

Tunisian authorities carry out illegal deportations, abandoning Black migrants in desert areas leaving them to die from thirst and hunger, and isolate thousands others in remote camps where they face immense violence and discrimination, and lack access to basic services. 

Black Tunisians also face increasing discrimination in public spaces, including aggression from non-Black Tunisians and frequent police checks. This anti-Black racism of the state functions as a means of controlling public space, through checkpoints, racial profiling, policing, and the militarization of society, de facto externalizing borders into everyday life.

This repression grows in a political climate shaped by the full support of the EU that externalizes its borders to Tunisia and neighbouring countries, a structural anti-Black racism that shape how laws are enforced in Tunisia, and a patriarchal system that controls and punishes opposition, difference and self-determination.

This logic of borders and racism is also used against Tunisians abroad. In Italy and Lampedusa, Tunisian migrants are held in detention centers, subjugated to systemic attacks and deportations and treated as criminals for seeking freedom, safety or work. We refuse to reproduce these acts in our country through official policies or complicit silence. 

Our vision

In the Mediterranean, many vanish, their bodies never found, their names never spoken. Families all over the African continent and around the Mediterranean are mourning loved ones lost at sea. This is not only about Tunisia: It is about a global system where the right to move, to survive, and to help others is crushed by walls and cages.

By imprisoning activists who resist these injustices, the state is trying to criminalize care and basic human rights, resistance, and dignity. This campaign is about making it clear: 

Racism is the crime. Solidarity is not ! Solidarity is a path to freedom.

We urge people and comrades around the world to mobilize. We must highlight the connections and broader patterns of racialized, patriarchal repression that Black and racialized migrants and anti-racist organizers face worldwide.
We demand:

1. an end of the imprisonment and abuse of migrants in Tunisia and abroad, close detention centers, whether in Tunisian camps or in Lampedusa.
2. the enforcement of Tunisia’s anti-racism law (Law No. 50) to protect everyone equally.
3. the withdrawal of all racist statements issued by the Tunisian state, recognition of the violence they have caused, and a public apology to all the victims.
4. the urgent establishment and protection of safe, legal routes for migrants and refugees across Northern Africa and Europe (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Art.13, 14 & 25)
5. truth and justice for the disappeared at sea, name them, find them, and support their families.
6. an end to the criminalization of humanitarian and solidarity work in Tunisia.
7. global solidarity, especially among affected communities in the Global South, by connecting the struggles of Black migrants in Tunisia, Tunisian migrants in Europe, racialized migrants everywhere, and all people resisting the violence of borders and border externalization worldwide.

Here’s how you can help:

1. Talk about this: Share the stories across social media, in newsletters, and within community spaces.
2. Call for an end of this injustice: Contact international organizations and your local representatives and demand pressure on Tunisian authorities to immediately release all the prisoners of solidarity and migration. Demand that EU and UN institutions be held accountable and end their complicity through funding and inaction.
3. Support M’nemty and other anti-racist and migrant and refugee organizations in Tunisia: Show support towards Saadia’s organization, M’nemty, which continues to face harassment. Also follow the work of Refugees in Tunisia, Refugees in Libya, La Voix des Femmes Tunisiennes Noires and the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, amplify their demands, and follow their recommendations to insure their safety.
4. Organize and Demonstrate: Mobilize protests, online and offline, to show solidarity with Black people on the move in Tunisia and with the prisoners of solidarity like Saadia, Abdallah, Sonia, Cherifa. Demand their immediate release.

To Conclude

The fight for racial justice and for freedom of movement is the fight for all those silenced, locked up, or disappeared. It is for the Black migrant jailed in Tunisian prisons without any charge. It is for the Tunisian in a detention camp in Lampedusa. It is for every family waiting for a child who is missing at sea. 

Borders, prisons, and racist laws kill, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. But the wound is the same everywhere. 

We sail toward a world where care and solidarity are the norm, not an exception punished with prison. A world where movement is free, care and solidarity are celebrated, and dignity and freedom are for everyone.

Racism is a crime, solidarity is not!

Free Saadia, Free Abdallah, Free Sonia, Free Cherifa, Free Them All!

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