Over the weekend, Chaima Issa, a Tunisian writer and human rights activist, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The daughter of a former political prisoner, Issa has been imprisoned in Tunisia since 2023 and is accused of "conspiracy against state security."
She was not alone. Her sentencing came as part of a mass trial of prominent opposition figures in Tunisia last Friday, including politicians, diplomats, lawyers and civil society activists. All had spoken out against Tunisian President Kais Saied and were sentenced to between 13 and 66 years in prison. Some, like Issa, are in jail in Tunisia, while others have fled the country.
"The Tunisian government has been using arbitrary detention and politically motivated prosecutions to intimidate, punish, and silence critics," the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch explained.
"The verdict is a travesty of justice and illustrates the authorities' complete disregard for Tunisia's international human rights obligations and the rule of law," the global human rights organization Amnesty International added.
European Union: Tunisia is 'safe'
Just three days earlier, the European Union's (EU) executive body, the European Commission, seemed to come to a totally different conclusion about the state of law in Tunisia.
The EU's new Pact on Migration and Asylum is meant to go into effect June 2026, but the European Commission wanted to move forward with some elements of it earlier, in order to help member states process asylum claims faster. One of those elements is an EU-wide list of "safe countries of origin," which includes Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, India, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia.
A "safe country of origin" is a country where people are generally considered safe and therefore should not require asylum in the European Union.
According to the European Commission's explanation, part of the reason it considers Tunisia safe is because, "the [Tunisian] constitution provides that the judiciary is an independent function, exercised by judges over whom there is no authority other than the law."
"If it wasn't so tragic, you might think the timing was ironic," Rasmus Alenius Boserup, director of Copenhagen-based advocacy organization EuroMed Rights, told DW, referring to how the heavily-criticized mass trial and the EU designation both happened last week.
There are many human rights violations in Tunisia, Alenius Boserup added. "The judiciary, the political opposition, journalists, human rights defenders and activists of all kinds have been being targeted there for three to four years now," he said. "And Egypt is even worse."
Egypt has around 60,000 political prisoners, and neither the political nor judicial system can be considered free and fair, he explained.
"So, if we're just designating countries like that as 'safe' for the sake of more expedient ways of handling asylum requests, it just doesn't make sense," Alenius Boserup argued.
Potential solution?
The EU itself says a mandatory EU-wide list of "safe countries of origin," or SCOs for short, should speed up the processing of asylum applications. That's because its assumed most applications from SCOs will be unsuccessful.
"Under the new regulation, applications [from SCOs] must be examined in an accelerated examination procedure and completed within a maximum of three months," the EU has stated.
EU countries could also choose to use so-called "border procedures" on irregular migrants from SCOs — that's basically when a person is simply refused entry at the border.
Faster processing times mean EU authorities could then concentrate on asylum applications with a better chance of asylum being granted.
Additionally, many member countries already have their own SCO lists. This can encourage "asylum-seekers to apply for asylum in host countries where the chances of success are higher," a May 2024 EU briefing on the topic explained. A unified EU list would prevent that.
The European Commission's proposal to fast-track an SCO list is yet to be voted on. But if agreed, rights organizations say it could have problematic consequences.
An SCO designation doesn't mean that everyone in the country is safe, or even that all parts of the country are. "Member states [still] need to conduct an individual assessment of each asylum application, … whether a person comes from a safe country of origin or not," the European Commission said this month.
"But this will likely make it more difficult for some asylum seekers to prove they are actually in danger," Alenius Boserup told DW.
Risk of mistakes
"The EU has been trying to be more expedient in its asylum application processing and objectively, that's not a bad ambition. We do need some reform," he conceded. "The problem is if you do it in a way that jeopardizes basic rights. By trying to be faster, the EU might well be undermining the principle it claims to want to defend."
Could a Tunisian opposition politician still successfully claim asylum in Europe, then? Alenius Boserup remains hopeful. "Still, the SCO listing increases the risk they won't," he explained. "We know there is painstakingly detailed work that goes into deciding a credible claim. But when you prioritize expediency over diligence, the risk of a mistake increases."
Rights organizations and lawyers also have serious misgivings about how a country gets on the list of SCOs in the first place.
The European Commission says its SCO list "draws on analysis" from the EU Agency for Asylum, member states, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and EU diplomats, among other sources.
Part of the decision about countries' SCO status is also based on the percentage of rejected European-wide asylum applications a particular country has. For example, only 4% of Tunisians applying for asylum in the EU are successful in their claims.
However as Baya Amouri, a legal researcher at the European University Institute in Italy, wrote for the Refugee Law Initiative in February, because the reasoning behind SCO status is so vague, there's potential for manipulation "based on diplomatic relations or political considerations rather than on a rigorous, objective evaluation of conditions."
"If you're going to use an SCO list, then at least do it correctly," Alenius Boserup agreed. "The criteria used to declare a specific country safe or not safe seems, at best, vague and under-documented." For instance, he continued, Morocco's status as an SCO could be debated. "But it's not even a discussion when you talk about Egypt and Tunisia."
DW asked the European Commission whether, given the long sentences handed out to members of Tunisia's political opposition last Friday, it still agreed with its earlier assessment about the Tunisian justice system being "independent"?
A spokesperson from the Commission did not offer a clear answer. They repeated that not everyone in a SCO is safe, and that member states still have to carry out "individual assessments." Additionally they said, "the Commission will monitor the EU list on a regular basis. Where the Commission finds that there is a significant change for the worse … it can suspend the designation."
The daughter of a former political prisoner, Issa has been imprisoned in Tunisia since 2023 and is accused of "conspiracy against state security."
She was not alone. Her sentencing came as part of a mass trial of prominent opposition figures in Tunisia last Friday, including politicians, diplomats, lawyers and civil society activists. All had spoken out against Tunisian President Kais Saied and were sentenced to between 13 and 66 years in prison. Some, like Issa, are in jail in Tunisia, while others have fled the country.
"The Tunisian government has been using arbitrary detention and politically motivated prosecutions to intimidate, punish, and silence critics," the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch explained.
"The verdict is a travesty of justice and illustrates the authorities' complete disregard for Tunisia's international human rights obligations and the rule of law," the global human rights organization Amnesty International added.
European Union: Tunisia is 'safe'
Just three days earlier, the European Union's (EU) executive body, the European Commission, seemed to come to a totally different conclusion about the state of law in Tunisia.
The EU's new Pact on Migration and Asylum is meant to go into effect June 2026, but the European Commission wanted to move forward with some elements of it earlier, in order to help member states process asylum claims faster. One of those elements is an EU-wide list of "safe countries of origin," which includes Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, India, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia.
A "safe country of origin" is a country where people are generally considered safe and therefore should not require asylum in the European Union.
According to the European Commission's explanation, part of the reason it considers Tunisia safe is because, "the [Tunisian] constitution provides that the judiciary is an independent function, exercised by judges over whom there is no authority other than the law."
"If it wasn't so tragic, you might think the timing was ironic," Rasmus Alenius Boserup, director of Copenhagen-based advocacy organization EuroMed Rights, told DW, referring to how the heavily-criticized mass trial and the EU designation both happened last week.
There are many human rights violations in Tunisia, Alenius Boserup added. "The judiciary, the political opposition, journalists, human rights defenders and activists of all kinds have been being targeted there for three to four years now," he said. "And Egypt is even worse."
Egypt has around 60,000 political prisoners, and neither the political nor judicial system can be considered free and fair, he explained.
"So, if we're just designating countries like that as 'safe' for the sake of more expedient ways of handling asylum requests, it just doesn't make sense," Alenius Boserup argued.
Potential solution?
The EU itself says a mandatory EU-wide list of "safe countries of origin," or SCOs for short, should speed up the processing of asylum applications. That's because its assumed most applications from SCOs will be unsuccessful.
"Under the new regulation, applications [from SCOs] must be examined in an accelerated examination procedure and completed within a maximum of three months," the EU has stated.
EU countries could also choose to use so-called "border procedures" on irregular migrants from SCOs — that's basically when a person is simply refused entry at the border.
Faster processing times mean EU authorities could then concentrate on asylum applications with a better chance of asylum being granted.
Additionally, many member countries already have their own SCO lists. This can encourage "asylum-seekers to apply for asylum in host countries where the chances of success are higher," a May 2024 EU briefing on the topic explained. A unified EU list would prevent that.
The European Commission's proposal to fast-track an SCO list is yet to be voted on. But if agreed, rights organizations say it could have problematic consequences.
An SCO designation doesn't mean that everyone in the country is safe, or even that all parts of the country are. "Member states [still] need to conduct an individual assessment of each asylum application, … whether a person comes from a safe country of origin or not," the European Commission said this month.
"But this will likely make it more difficult for some asylum seekers to prove they are actually in danger," Alenius Boserup told DW.
Risk of mistakes
"The EU has been trying to be more expedient in its asylum application processing and objectively, that's not a bad ambition. We do need some reform," he conceded. "The problem is if you do it in a way that jeopardizes basic rights. By trying to be faster, the EU might well be undermining the principle it claims to want to defend."
Could a Tunisian opposition politician still successfully claim asylum in Europe, then? Alenius Boserup remains hopeful. "Still, the SCO listing increases the risk they won't," he explained. "We know there is painstakingly detailed work that goes into deciding a credible claim. But when you prioritize expediency over diligence, the risk of a mistake increases."
Rights organizations and lawyers also have serious misgivings about how a country gets on the list of SCOs in the first place.
The European Commission says its SCO list "draws on analysis" from the EU Agency for Asylum, member states, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and EU diplomats, among other sources.
Part of the decision about countries' SCO status is also based on the percentage of rejected European-wide asylum applications a particular country has. For example, only 4% of Tunisians applying for asylum in the EU are successful in their claims.
However as Baya Amouri, a legal researcher at the European University Institute in Italy, wrote for the Refugee Law Initiative in February, because the reasoning behind SCO status is so vague, there's potential for manipulation "based on diplomatic relations or political considerations rather than on a rigorous, objective evaluation of conditions."
"If you're going to use an SCO list, then at least do it correctly," Alenius Boserup agreed. "The criteria used to declare a specific country safe or not safe seems, at best, vague and under-documented." For instance, he continued, Morocco's status as an SCO could be debated. "But it's not even a discussion when you talk about Egypt and Tunisia."
DW asked the European Commission whether, given the long sentences handed out to members of Tunisia's political opposition last Friday, it still agreed with its earlier assessment about the Tunisian justice system being "independent"?
A spokesperson from the Commission did not offer a clear answer. They repeated that not everyone in a SCO is safe, and that member states still have to carry out "individual assessments." Additionally they said, "the Commission will monitor the EU list on a regular basis. Where the Commission finds that there is a significant change for the worse … it can suspend the designation."
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