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| Africa North |
| Tunisian nude photo draws Islamist ire |
| 2013-03-23 |
| [MAGHAREBIA] An Islamist activist on Thursday (March 21st) hacked the Facebook page of feminist group Femen's Tunisian branch and posted religious messages after images of two members of the group posing topless were published on the internet, AFP reported. "Thanks to God we have hacked this immoral page and the best is yet to come," read one message signed by "Al-Angour". "The page has been hacked and God willing, this debauchery will disappear from Tunisia," read another. Almost two weeks ago, a girl named Amina posted nude photos of herself online with the caption, "I own my body. It is not the source of anyone's honour," written on her bare chest. The 19-year-old girl described her move as an act of protest to mark International Women's Day. On Wednesday, a picture of a second topless Tunisian girl was circulated on the internet to protest the status of women in Tunisia. The page of Femen Tunisia with more than 6,800 likes defended the right of every girl to go naked. Staging topless protests is a tradition of the Ukrainian feminist group, which confirmed its intention to open a branch in Tunisia, a request rejected by the Tunisian women's affairs minister. Siham Badi promised to "work to confront it and legally ban it because it is incompatible with the Islamic religion and Tunisian traditions". Amina's act of defiance stirred extreme reactions from Tunisia's radicals, including death threats. Adel Alami, who heads the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice supposedly affiliated with the salafist movement, called for stoning the girl. "It would have been better before letting her appear on TV to have her tested medically and determine whether she was consuming drugs or not. She must be presented to a psychiatrist who specialises in mental illnesses to ensure her mental capacities," the radical imam told Ettounsiya TV. For his part, jihadist leader Mohamed Anis Chaieb, who recently declared allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), told Assabah that the nude photo posting is an illustration that secularists seek to eliminate the Islamic identity of the country. While many Tunisians reacted negatively to the posting, they equally condemned salafist threats of violence. Maysem Abidi argued that freedom is a form of "intellectual transcendence rather than physical nakedness". Young salafist Jamel Omrani described Amina's act as "a shame on a Moslems country" and said that the girl "does not represent Moslems Tunisian women". For his part, media engineer Mohamed Ammar told Magharebia that the salafist response was typical. "They do not frankly accept any opinion contrary to their beliefs," the 32-year-old said. "We all reacted negatively to the posting of the pictures of the two girls, but we discussed this with them using arguments and reason, not by cursing or stoning them. We didn't hack their personal pages either." "Whatever reason they use for piracy or silencing the other, it is unacceptable," said Thouraya Bin Mubarak, a 28 year old employee. "The door of dialogue between all sides and all parties must be opened regardless of their ideological orientation." Instead of hacking pages and issuing death threats, she argued, Islamists should have created their own page "devoted to the Islamic ethics of Moslem women who aspire to liberty, like all other women in the world". |
| Posted by:Fred |