As African migrants are swept up in a widening crackdown, critics say President Kais Saied is openly mining a deep vein of discrimination and prejudice against dark-skinned people in Tunisia.
Tunisia’s road to democracy began with a self-immolation, and such cases have filled hospital burn wards ever since, as elected leaders failed to deliver on a promise of prosperity.
Tensions across the religious-secular fault lines in the country could not be reconciled, and freely elected leaders failed to deliver on the 2011 uprising’s cry for bread, freedom and dignity.
The charter, passed in a referendum, cements the almost absolute power that President Kais Saied seized over the past year, when he has ruled mostly by decree.