CIVICUS speaks about the challenges faced by Tunisia’s civil society as the government moves to restrict foreign funding with Larbi Sadiki, director of the Democratic Sustainability Forum (Demos-Tunisia), scholar of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and fellow of Japan’s Toda Peace Institute.
Demos-Tunisia is a Tunisian civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes sustainable democracy through research, education, advocacy and cross-regional collaboration with an emphasis on local solutions and civic values.
What’s the situation of civil society in Tunisia?
In post-colonial countries such as Tunisia, the expectation that civil society will be integrated into policy frameworks and treated as a resource for inclusive citizenship and justice remains unfulfilled. Historically, and particularly in post-independence quasi-welfarist states, the implementation of distributive justice policies has been the exclusive preserve of the state. For civil society, playing such a political role has often put it at odds with the state.
There’s been protest, lobbying and advocacy since the 1960s, and this has continued through different political periods, including in response to the 2022 constitutional changes that gave unchecked power to the current political elite. Yet the authorities can’t easily suppress a civil society like Tunisia’s, which is plural and bears the marks of its historical struggles. Key areas of civil society work include addressing regional inequalities, citizenship deficits and power asymmetries in development.
There is no comprehensive framework to guide civil society in working with the state, despite the importance accorded to civil society in the 2014 and 2022 constitutions. Of late, the state has focused primarily on regulatory measures that limit the space for civil society, and hasn’t provided the financial or technical support needed to make it sustainable. However, a post-revolution training programme, in which the state pays interns and trainees to work with civil society groups, remains largely untapped and has the potential to be revitalised.
Tunisia’s civil society has remained active in a context of erosion of democracy and receding civic space. Despite the new realities on the ground, unions, associations, youth bodies and student groups continue to develop capacities for advocacy, particularly in human rights and economic rights. They influence public discourse through the media and shape the legal agenda via the activism of various professional groups. This work is vital for the re-democratisation agenda.
But Tunisia has urgent need of distributive justice and its civil society faces significant challenges. It already receives less funding from the European Union (EU) and North America than its counterparts of Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. The 2011 revolution initially drew traction and global donor attention along with funding. This resulted in the creation of more than 20,000 CSOs. Many of these CSOs have since ceased operations due to lack of resources.
More recently, many CSOs have started rejecting funding from western donors due to their perceived conditionality in the light of several European states’ support for Israel in the Gaza conflict. It’s a kind of conditionality in reverse. As long as major western powers support a genocidal war against Palestinians, their funding programmes for CSOs in Tunisia and the region in support of democracy promotion or human rights seem to be hollow.
Tunisia, like others in the Arab region, is now moving to restrict access to foreign funding. As a result, civil society in Tunisia is experiencing a period of confusion and relative inactivity. There may be a case that foreign funding for CSOs has strings attached when it comes to knowledge and values brokering in the global south.
Why is the government trying to restrict foreign funding for CSOs?
The rejection of foreign funding is based on the fear that it could exert undue influence to potentially alter the political landscape. Tunisia is not alone in this, as the erosion of democracy and human rights is a global issue, highlighted by the west’s indifference to the Gaza conflict.
But laws aimed at limiting foreign influence can lead to over-regulation, which, in the absence of a robust judiciary, can undermine civic pluralism and activism. The key is to strike a balance between regulation and transparency to avoid stifling the pluralism and activism crucial to a healthy democracy.
Following the 2021 power grab, the authorities started warning CSOs against serving foreign agendas. A parliamentary committee is currently looking into proposed amendments to existing legislation (Decree Law 88 of 2011) that may allow the government to monitor the inflow of foreign funds under the pretext of combating money laundering and terrorism. Specifically, amendments may include supervisory power assigned to the prime minister’s office. The supervisory powers may include prior declaration of all planned activities and registration in a digital database. If the draft amendments go ahead, authorisation could be required for all foreign funding.
Decree Law 54 of 2022 on the dissemination of ‘fake news’, if applied arbitrarily, also poses a threat to peaceful dissent and online free speech.
What challenges are faced by migrants’ rights organisations?
Tunisia is home to many migrant communities, including Libyans and other Africans who transit through Tunisia to reach the coast and take a boat to Europe. The issue of illegal migration is often framed in Eurocentric terms, overlooking global inequalities and western policies that drive migration flows. This narrative misleadingly portrays migration as an African or Arab problem.
There is a stark contrast in how the EU treats different migrants, favouring Eastern Europeans but imposing strict gatekeeping on Arabs and Africans. This racist approach is evident in various western policies such as the Mexican border wall, Frontex operations in Europe, Schengen visa systems and forced deportations. Migration deals with countries such as Albania, Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia to police and stop irregular arrivals in EU countries further illustrate these exclusionary policies.
Avoiding oversimplification and recognising the broader context of migration policies is key to distinguishing between the actions of poorer nations and those of wealthy countries. Tunisia’s civil society, while active, is unable to address the complexities of illegal migration – but not for lack of trying.
The struggle for democracy after the 2011 revolution is intertwined with demands for rights. Advocacy for the rights of African migrants transiting through Tunisia to Europe is a testament to the maturity of Tunisian civil society in embracing universal human rights. But those doing this work are increasingly under attack.
Among them is Saadia Mosbah, founder and leader of Mnemty, an organisation that fights racial discrimination and helped draft Law 50 of 2018. This law, which embodies the Arab and Muslim tradition of caring for all people, bans racial discrimination. But Mosbah was recently arrested, allegedly as part of a money laundering investigation.
Other prominent activists arrested include Sharifa Al-Riyahi, former executive director of Tunisia, Land of Asylum, and Abdelrazak Al-Karimi and Mustafa Al-Jamali of the Tunisian Refugee Council.
Tunisian and African migration CSOs must work together to help resolve the drain of human capital from the global south’s labour forces. This will require a refocusing of EU investments in migration deals from policing to development agendas, including labour training and entrepreneurship opportunities. In Tunisia, the government and CSOs alike can positively influence how migration is viewed publicly in a country where 10 per cent of its population live in the EU. This policy must be paired with joint efforts by African governments to lobby the EU for opportunities for a percentage of irregular migrants to become regular.
Civic space in the Tunisia is rated ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with Demos-Tunisia through its website.
The opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIVICUS.
