Femen women held in Arab world's first topless protest

Femen women held in Arab world's first topless protest


said Souheib Bahri, adding that she only risked a six month sentence for possessing the self-defence spray.
 
Amina sparked both scandal and a wave of online support after she was threatened by Tunisia's increasingly active hardline Islamists for posting topless pictures of herself on Facebook.
 
Her family said that she suffered from chronic depression and had suicidal tendencies, and they prevented her from going out, claiming her safety was at risk. But the young woman, who accused her relatives of holding her in captivity and beating her, ran away from home in April and has regularly appeared in public since, although never topless.

The Femen movement, founded in Ukraine and now based in Paris, has flourished since 2010, with feminists around the world stripping off in protest at a wide range of issues linked to the mistreatment of women, but also against dictatorship.

Tunisia, whose ruling coalition is headed by Islamist party Ennahda, has the most liberal laws in the Arab world governing women's rights, although gender equality has yet to be inscribed in the new constitution.

Secular opposition parties and feminist groups frequently accuse Ennahda of seeking to roll back women's rights, although the Islamist party has opposed enshrining Islamic sharia law in the constitution.

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