TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
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 on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
https://arab.news/56f8w
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
New poll shows only 6% of Arabs accept recognizing Israel
- Reasons ‘mainly linked to its colonial, racist, and expansionist nature’
- More than 40,000 people in 15 Arab countries surveyed on wide range of issues
CHICAGO: Eighty-seven percent of citizens in the Arab world oppose recognition of Israel while only 6 percent accept it, according to a new survey by the Arab Center Washington DC.
The 2025 Arab Opinion Index, conducted nine times since 2011, surveyed more than 40,000 people in 15 Arab countries on a wide range of issues including politics, economy and identity.
“An overwhelming majority … oppose recognition of Israel,” Tamara Kharroub, deputy executive director and senior fellow at the ACW, said during a live webinar on Tuesday attended by Arab News.
That finding has been consistent and within range in every poll conducted since 2014, according to the center’s polling data.
The 15 countries surveyed are Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Tunisia.
The highest rates of opposition to recognizing Israel were recorded in Libya (96 percent), Jordan (95 percent), Kuwait (94 percent) and Palestine (91 percent).
A conclusion cited in the poll said: “Those who opposed recognizing Israel cited various factors, mainly linked to its colonial, racist, and expansionist nature and its continued occupation of Palestinian territory. Cultural or religious explanations were largely absent.
“The reasons cited by respondents clearly indicated that their position on recognizing Israel is not likely to change as long as its colonial nature persists.”
Kharroub said the number that accept recognition of Israel “dropped by 2 percentage points in the 2025 Arab Opinion Index, compared to the 2022 survey.”
She added of those 6 percent, “half made such a move conditional on the formation of an independent Palestinian state.”
Yousef Munayyer, ACW’s head of the Palestine / Israel Program and senior fellow, said: “Israel continues to be widely perceived as a threat and not a partner. This is something that has only been escalated in recent years.”
He added: “Normalization lacks popular legitimacy, not just because of the lack of support for it among Arab public opinion, but also because the threat perception in the region has changed significantly over the last several years, and that’s perhaps one of the most important developments since the genocide in Gaza began.”
Seventy percent oppose a peace deal between Syria and Israel that does not include the return of the Syrian Golan Heights.
Other findings include the broader public view that despite different nationalities, 76 percent of respondents see the Arab world as being a “single nation” or an “Arab nation.”
The full survey report can be viewed at www.ArabCenterDC.org.
