Tunis caught again in act of doing dirty job for Algiers

France has put pressure in the last moments preventing the authoritarian regime in Tunis from handing opposition figure Amira Bouraoui to Algeria.

Amira Bouraoui fled persecution under the Algerian regime which banned her from leaving the country for her pro-democracy stands and opposition to the regime. She sought to travel to France from Tunisia. But little did she know that Tunisia has become an Algerian state where Algerian pro-democracy activists face the risk of kidnapping to Algiers in full sight and connivance of Tunisian authorities.

Amira Bouraoui was arrested at the Tunis-Carthage International Airport on February 3. She was released by a Tunisian judge to be kidnapped again and led to a border post to be extradited to Algeria.

But the protection of the French embassy in Tunisia saved dual-national Bouraoui from an abhorrent fate in Algiers.

Her case highlights the human rights violations risks in cash-strapped Tunisia which come as a concession for gas and sugar from Algeria, where dissent is quelled.

Her case highlights the loss of Tunisian sovereignty and its fall into Algeria’s orbit. She was not the first political activist to be targeted by Algeria in Tunis.

Slimane Bouhafs, a Kabyle refugee and pro-democracy activist registered with UNHCR, was kidnapped in August 2021 by Algerian secret agents in full sight of Tunisian authorities.

“The one-year anniversary of President Saied’s power grab serves as a signpost of an ever-growing dismantling of human rights protections. Ruling by decree and without oversight or review, the president has undermined several key human rights achievements that the country has made in the ten years following the 2011 revolution that ended the rule of former President Ben Ali,” Amnesty said in a report last July.