TUNIS: Two aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia were sentenced Monday to two years in prison, with four months suspended, but will be freed after time already served, their lawyer said, sentences well short of what had been feared.
Mustapha Djemali, an 81-year-old Tunisian-Swiss national who heads the Tunisian Refugee Council, and TRC project manager Abderrazek Krimi, had been charged with “sheltering” migrants and “facilitating illegal entry” into the North African country.
Yusra Djemali, a daughter of the TRC chief, told AFP on Monday: “It’s still unjust, but we are truly relieved because the sentence is rather light.
“He has about four months of the suspended sentence left, but the important thing is that he gets out of prison tonight.”
This was the first trial of more than a dozen aid workers from various organizations arrested during a May 2024 crackdown.
Earlier on Monday, Human Rights Watch called for charges against aid workers to be dropped, amid fears that they could be sentenced to a decade in jail.
The TRC partnered with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to screen asylum applications.
Three other TRC members, appearing in court while free on the same charges as Djemali and Krimi, were acquitted, lawyer Mounira Ayadi told AFP.
Lawyers have insisted that the TRC worked legally to help asylum seekers.
Ayadi and other lawyers all argued that the TRC worked in “exclusive partnership” and within the framework of a “legal agreement” with the UNHCR to find emergency accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees.
“The TRC carried out essential protection work in support of refugees and asylum seekers, operating legally with international organizations accredited in Tunisia,” the group said in a statement.
“Targeting an organization with abusive legal action criminalizes crucial assistance work and leaves asylum seekers without the support they desperately need.”
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands seeking to reach Europe each year.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including members of French group Terre d’Asile and anti-racist organization Mnemty, who are awaiting trial.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
Tunisians convicted of aiding migrants but will go free
https://arab.news/5crdh
Tunisians convicted of aiding migrants but will go free
- This was the first trial of more than a dozen aid workers from various organizations arrested during a May 2024 crackdown
- The TRC partnered with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to screen asylum applications
Israeli approval of West Bank land registration draws outrage
- Israel’s government has approved a process to register land in the West Bank, drawing condemnation
JERUSALEM: Israel’s government has approved a process to register land in the West Bank, drawing condemnation from Arab nations and critics who labelled it a “mega land grab” that would accelerate annexation of the Palestinian territory.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the measure would enable “transparent and thorough clarification of rights to resolve legal disputes” and was needed after unlawful land registration in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
But Egypt, Qatar and Jordan criticized the move as illegal under international law.
In a statement, the Egyptian government called it a “dangerous escalation aimed at consolidating Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Qatar’s foreign ministry condemned the “decision to convert West Bank lands into so-called ‘state property’,” saying it would “deprive the Palestinian people of their rights.”
The Palestinian Authority called for international intervention to prevent the “de facto beginning of the annexation process and the undermining of the foundations of the Palestinian state.”
Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now called Sunday’s measure a “mega land grab.”
According to public broadcaster Kan, land registration will be reopened in the West Bank for the first time since 1967 — when Israel captured the territory in the Middle East war.
The Israeli media reported that the process will take place only in Area C, which constitutes some 60 percent of West Bank territory and is under Israeli security and administrative control.
Palestinians see the West Bank as foundational to any future Palestinian state, but many on Israel’s religious right want to take over the land.
Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of measures backed by far-right ministers to tighten control over areas of the West Bank administered by the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo accords in place since the 1990s.
Those measures, which also sparked international backlash, include allowing Jewish Israelis to buy West Bank land directly and allowing Israeli authorities to administer certain religious sites in areas under the Palestinian Authority’s control.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements and outposts, which are illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the territory.
