TUNISIA — In an Aug. 29 joint press conference with the Association of Ivorian Students and Interns in Tunisia, Yemina Thabet, the head of the Tunisian Association for the Support of Minorities, called on the Tunisian parliament to speed up the ratification of the draft law criminalizing racism. Eight Ivorians were physically and verbally abused by Tunisians in late August.

The Tunisian Forum on Economic and Social Rights, the Euro-Mediterranean Network and the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights first proposed a bill to criminalize racial discrimination in Tunisia at a press conference in March 2016. In June 2016, the bill was submitted to the various parliamentary blocs.

In an Aug. 29 statement to Mosaique FM, Thabet condemned the recurrent racially motivated acts of verbal and physical abuse committed against black people in Tunisia and bemoaned the absence of a strict deterrent law to protect those who fall prey to such crimes.

Tunisia is home to 60,000 African immigrants and more than 4,000 African students. The attack on the eight Ivorians sparked renewed debate on the phenomenon of racial discrimination in the country and led human rights groups to voice concerns over the increasing rate of abuse that people from sub-Saharan Africa are facing.