Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed defended himself on Wednesday March 8 from any racism towards sub-Saharans after the outcry aroused by his inflammatory speech against illegal immigrants.
On February 21, he claimed that the presence of “hordes” of illegal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa was a source of “violence and crime” and part of a “criminal enterprise” aimed at “changing the demographic composition” of the country. After this speech, condemned by NGOs as “racist and hateful”, nationals of sub-Saharan Africa reported an upsurge in attacks against them and rushed by the dozen to their embassies to be repatriated.
In an apparent concern for appeasement, Mr. Saïed affirmed, during an interview with the President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who was stopping over in Tunis, that the Africans present in Tunisia were “brothers”, according to a video released by the Tunisian presidency. Claiming that the purpose of his speech was to uphold “Tunisian legality regarding foreigners” and prevent any “jurisdiction parallel to state jurisdictions”, he rejected the “malicious remarks” of those who “wanted interpret the speech as they please to harm Tunisia”.
“Shocking” Statements
“This situation regarding Africans cannot be interpreted by malevolent tongues, as they have been doing in recent days, as racism. What are they talking about ? They ramble,” he added. “I am African and proud to be,” he said.
Mr. Embalo, current president of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), spoke of a “misinterpretation” of Mr. Saïed’s speech on sub-Saharan migrants, saying that he could not believe that “the president of Tunisia, the country of Bourguiba, can be xenophobic or racist”. The African Union had condemned “shocking” statements, calling on member countries to “refrain from racist hate speech”.
According to official figures, Tunisia has more than 21,000 nationals of sub-Saharan African countries, the majority in an irregular situation, i.e. less than 0.2% of a total population of approximately 12 million inhabitants.
