A bill governing the creation and financing of associations is worrying in a Tunisia in recession, where many of these organizations support activities such as crafts, professional training or help for women victims of violence.
The text, supposed to replace a decree-law adopted in 2011 which allowed the emergence of 25,000 associations, many of which contributed to the transition to democracy after the revolution and the fall of dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, is in progress scrutiny in Parliament. Its promoters, encouraged by President Kaïs Saïed who suspects the associative world of serving the agenda of “foreign powers”, claim to want to fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The project places Tunisian and foreign NGOs “under the control and supervision” of the ministries of the interior and foreign affairs. The creation of an association and obtaining external aid will be subject to prior authorization. Several international NGOs have denounced a “growing regression of rights” in Tunisia since Mr. Saïed’s coup in the summer of 2021 by which he granted himself full powers.
“Discretionary character”
Amnesty International criticized the “discretion given to the government to authorize or deny funding” to associations, which “could constitute a disproportionate restriction on freedom of association”. “We are vigilant about what is going to happen”, particularly for prior authorizations for foreign subsidies, confides to AFP Mehdi Baccouche, director of the Shanti association, which depends “90 to 95% on international funding”. .
He was speaking in the courtyard of L’Artisanerie, a “social and solidarity shop” managed by his association in Tunis, in the middle of around ten stands set up on Saturday March 2 for “a gourmet market”. In addition to L’Artisanerie, where the productions (carpets, pottery, furniture, etc.) of sixty Tunisian artisans are sold at a fair price, Shanti employs “twenty-two full-time employees” who “support around a hundred projects” in the crafts, agriculture and ecotourism.
“It is important to preserve the freedoms acquired for associations and to continue to develop the obtaining of national or international funds,” underlines Mr. Baccouche, saying he is open to regulation but “in a permanent dialogue” with the authorities. “Because the development of the voluntary sector creates thousands of jobs and beyond that thousands of people directly impacted” in their daily lives, he explains.
This is the case of Zohra Zimoumi, 38, mother of two little girls, who makes carpets and jewelry in Nefta (far south) sold in Tunis, which allows her “to receive a regular monthly salary used to pay her rent and ensure a decent life for his family.” For Bassem Trifi of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH), with the new law, “Tunisia can lose its civil society and all the work it has done.” “By limiting the financial resources of civil society, we risk losing around 30,000 direct jobs” and up to 100,000 indirect jobs, he assures AFP.
“Excessive powers”
However, Tunisia entered an economic recession at the end of 2023 and the unemployment rate exceeds 16% (40% among young people). The State, heavily in debt, does not have the means to support the voluntary sector. For Mr. Trifi, “the intention of the bill is to restrict civil society, its financing, its activity and to limit its work to certain areas suggested by the political authority.”
A concern shared by the UN rapporteur on freedom of association and assembly, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule. “The 2011 decree is an achievement of the revolution that must be preserved,” he told AFP on the sidelines of a recent intervention in Tunisia. For him, the new planned system of “pre-authorizations [to create associations] gives excessive powers to the authority which can, according to its agenda, refuse an association”. The regulations currently in force which authorize the creation of associations by simple notification already allow the authorities “to control the organization’s agenda and determine whether there is a security risk”, he argues.
Tunisia stood out in the region for the emergence after 2011 of a myriad of associations sometimes touching sensitive areas such as the defense of LGBTQ or freedom of the press with the creation of independent media. “The authorities must open discussions with civil society,” said the UN rapporteur, pointing to “a problem of lack of consultation” regarding the controversial bill.
