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NIAS Area Studies
AFRICA MONITOR
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IN BRIEF
by Apoorva Sudhakar
Africa celebrates first Kiswahili Day
On 7 July, Africa celebrated its first Kiswahili Language Day. Celebrations were held across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda wehre the language is widely used. With this, Kiswahili is now included in the official languages of the African Union. The other languages are English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese. In November 2021, UNESCO had declared 7 July as Kiswahili Day. Across the world, 200 million people are estimated to speak the language and ranks among the 10 most spoken languages globally. (Andrew Wasike, “Africa celebrates 1st World Kiswahili Language Day,” Anadolu Agency, 7 July 2022)
Tunisia: Opposition parties call for boycott of referendum on constitution
On 7 July, hundreds of protesters attempted to gather at the electoral commission office to demonstrate against the upcoming referendum on a new constitution proposed by president Kais Saied. The protests were led by the Free Constitutional Party; however, police and security forces pushed back the protesters. On 8 July, BBC reported that the Ennahda Party had also called on its members to boycott the referendum and the party spokesperson said the vote was not in Tunisians’ interests. (“Tunisians protest against referendum for controversial new constitution,” Reuters, 8 July 2022; Mike Thomson, “Tunisia's Islamist party urges referendum boycott,” BBC, 8 July 2022)