The former president of an association of sub-Saharan African students in Tunisia, very active a year ago in the face of an anti-migrant campaign, was arrested by the authorities, the group announced Tuesday March 26. The Association of African Students and Trainees in Tunisia (Aesat) alerted in a press release about the “disappearance” of Cameroonian student Christian Kwongang since March 19, after he went to a police station to “recover your residence permit”.
“The latest news is that Christian Kwongang is being detained in the center of El Ouardia [a southern district of Tunis] without any official reason,” Yaya Traoré, a Malian student elected at the end of February, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). as new president of Aesat. The El Ouardia center has been identified by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) as a “lawless zone where people are arbitrarily deprived of their freedoms”.
Mr. Kwongang, enrolled at the private Upes University in Tunis, had “gone to get his definitive residence permit” when he was detained at the police station, according to Mr. Traoré. He was able to make a telephone call, during which he specified that he had been questioned about his activities during the crisis of spring 2023. On February 21, 2023, Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed denounced the arrival in his country of “hordes of illegal migrants” from sub-Saharan Africa as part of a plot “to change the demographic makeup” of the country. The president’s speech triggered a violent campaign against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa present in Tunisia.
Detained “outside any legal framework”
In its press release, Aesat denounced a detention “without any official accusation or trial”. Questioned by AFP, the Tunisian Interior Ministry said it did not have any information on the subject at this stage. Lawyers were mandated by Terre d’Asile Tunisie, the International Organization for Migration and Lawyers Without Borders to elucidate the fate of Mr. Kwongang.
The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, an NGO specializing in migration issues, called for “an urgent release” of Mr. Kwongang, detained “beyond any legal framework.” The NGO said it “feared that he would pay for his activist activity” in spring 2023. On February 21, 2023, Mr. Saïed denounced the arrival in his country of “hordes of illegal migrants” from sub-Saharan Africa in the part of a plot “to change the demographic makeup” of the country.
Over the following weeks, hundreds of sub-Saharan African nationals were chased from their jobs and homes, and many took refuge near their embassies before emergency repatriations, notably to Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Guinea.