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INKYFADA
Founded in 2014 by a team of journalists, developers, and graphic designers, Inkyfada is an independent non-profit media collective based in Tunis.
Demonstrators hold up fists and placards in Rome
Migrant Lives
Luca Rondi & Lorenzo Figoni

Awaiting Deportation, Migrants In Italy Are "Kept Quiet" With Sedative Drugs

Before being deported from Italy, undocumented migrants are detained in Repatriation Detention Centers, where they are often sedated with powerful psychotropic drugs, according to this investigative report by Altreconomia, in collaboration with Inkyfada.

In Italy's Repatriation Detention Centers (Centri di permanenza per i rimpatri, or CPR), undocumented migrants waiting to be sent back to their countries of origin are often "kept quiet" with the use of psychotropic drugs, a former employee of one of the centers says.

Doped up or knocked unconscious, migrants "don't eat, don't make waste, and above all don't claim their rights" while waiting to be deported from Italy, says Matteo, pseudonym of an operator who worked for several months in a CPR.

According to his account, detainees are subdued with the arbitrary and excessive use of psychotropic drugs. The policy even saves the centers money, because psychotropic drugs are cheap, while "the food that an active person needs, on the other hand, costs a lot more," Matteo explains.

Unpublished data obtained by the Italian magazine Altreconomia, in collaboration with Inkyfada, reveals the seriousness of this phenomenon, which happens in centers around Italy. Most of the migrants are Tunisians, who can be repatriated from Italy under a 2011 agreement signed by the two countries.

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Photo of people attending a cultural Russian-themed event in Hammamet, Tunisia, walking past a framed picture of Russian nested dolls
Geopolitics
Driss Rejichi

A Key New Ally For Russia That Makes The West Cringe: Tunisia

Tunis and Moscow have been increasingly close — at the cost of relations with the West, which had once looked to Tunisia as a model of democracy. The two countries are brought together by Kremlin's efforts to woo African countries, but also a natural alliance of its strongman Presidents Putin and Saïed.

-Analysis-

TUNIS — Back on December 16, a surprising scene was unfolding at the headquarters of the Independent High Authority for Elections. In the chairs of the reception hall, the president of the government agency Farouk Bouasker and four other members of the organization were seated in front of … a Russian delegation.

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Arriving from Moscow the same day, they were members of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, a body that monitors and evaluates public action but has very little power in Vladimir Putin’s regime. Yet they were welcomed with the honors previously reserved to the European Union delegations, and presented with a copy of the new electoral code.

Deployed to Tunisia at the invitation of Farouk Bouasker, close to Tunisia's strongman President Kaïs Saïed, their mission would be to follow and analyze the process of the legislative elections organized the next day. It was the first such meeting since the coup of July 25, 202, when Saied issued an emergency declaration firing the prime minister and assumed all executive power.

It is the first ever delegation of this kind sent by Russia in the country. If their mission doesn’t differ from that of their European predecessors, the context of their coming is far from trivial.

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Tunisian President Kais Said and his entourage stand infront of a table piled with books
Society
Matteo Trabelsi

Tunisian Frankenstein? Strongman President Accused Of Censorship At Book Fair

The recently completed 37th International Book Fair in Tunis became a flashpoint of growing concerns that Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed is cracking down on freedom of speech.

TUNIS — In the final days of the International Book Fair of Tunis, the aisles of the Kram Exhibition Center were buzzing with publisher stands overrun by readers in search of new works and young attendees checking out the latest board games. At first glance, it was difficult to imagine that the 37th edition of Tunisia's top literary event was embroiled in a major censorship controversy.

Two books — Le Frankenstein Tunisien (Tunisian Frankenstein) and Kaïs Ier président d’un bateau ivre (Kaïs I, President of a Drunken Boat) — had been removed days before from the stands, for so-called "administrative reasons."

On Friday, April 28, less than an hour after the inauguration of the Fair by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, who had declared his support for "freedom of thought," all copies of Le Frankenstein Tunisien, the latest novel by Kamel Riahi, illustrated by a caricature of Saïed on the cover, were withdrawn. The next day, Kaïs 1er, président d'un bateau ivre, an essay by journalist and author Nizar Bahloul, also disappeared from the shelves.

"Officials from the Ministry of Culture along with the Fair's security guards came to collect the inventory of the book. They told us that it was for inspection," said the head of the stand that publishes Bahloul’s work, the Maison tunisienne du livre. Their stand remained open, unlike, publishing house Dar Al Kitab’s, which was shut down by security agents. The stand was covered with a black tarpaulin, on which the publisher pasted a poster explaining that the closure was "an arbitrary decision.”

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Tunisian migrants travel through the Mediterranean Sea in a small fishing boat towards the island of Lampedusa​
Migrant Lives
Haïfa Mzalouat

Across Africa, Families Of Migrants Lost At Sea Join Forces For Comfort And Justice

In West and North Africa, survivors of migrants who've vanished have come together to support each other and pay tribute to their family members. But above all, they're trying any means possible to find out the truth and get justice after years of silence.

ZARZIS — “I need to know the truth! Where is my son?”

Souad’s voice resonates strongly through the square in the town of Zarzis, in the south of Tunisia. On Sept. 6, 2022, in spite of the sweltering heat, the families of people who went missing during migration marched through the town with sympathetic activists, holding banners and slogans.

This date was chosen in homage to the 80 people who went missing after a small boat departing from Tunisia sank off the coast of Italy. Ten years later, the mother of one of the lost at sea is still there, waiting for answers.

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