Muslim women protesters: “Our tits are deadlier than your stones!” (NSFW)

By MELISSA WELLHAM

Did you bare your breasts as a form of protest on the 4th of April?

If not, you missed out on an excellent boob-bearing opportunity because the Thursday before last was “topless jihad day”.

Earlier this month, Femen activists – a Ukrainian feminist group, famous for organising topless protests – encouraged women around the world to participate in a “topless jihad day”, in support of a Tunisian woman who was threatened with death by stoning, after bearing her breasts online.

19-year-old Amina Tyler found herself at the centre of a political and religious storm, when she posted photos of herself on the Femen-Tunisia Facebook page with the words, “F*ck your morals” emblazoned across her chest. In a second topless photo, she wrote, “My body belongs to me, and is not the source of anyone’s honour”, in Arabic script across her breasts.

Soon after, Wahabi Salafi preacher Almi Adel – and the head of Tunisia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – said Amina needed to be punished according to Sharia Law. He called for the young woman’s death by stoning. The line of reasoning was that her actions could “bring about an epidemic”.

Following the incident, it was first reported that Amina had been incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. In a conflicting report, an attorney claiming to be the young woman’s lawyer has said she is safe at home with her family.

Femen leader Inna Shevchenko told Huffington Post, “Since the day I lost connection with Amina we [have] got information from strangers that Amina is safe, in hospital, being raped in the street, with her family, having beer in a bar, that she has been arrested. But still no sound from Amina.”

Until Amina herself comes forward, the Femen group will worry. As will many women across the world.

Amina, before she disappeared off the map, said that she was concerned she would be beaten and raped if the police got a hold of her.

In an attempt to make it clear that women across the world are watching the leaders and lawmakers in Tunisia, Femen organised the April 4 topless protests.

The radical group urged their supporters to protest topless outside Tunisian embassies around the world, and post their protest photos online.

The following photos were taken from the Femen Facebook page. They are NSFW. 

The fight between Femen and their detractors has quickly become a religious one. One their Facebook group page, the group said that they were fighting against the “lethal hatred of Islamists – inhuman beasts for whom killing a woman is more natural than recognising her right to do as she pleases with her own body.”

In response, a group of Muslim women have created the group Muslim Women Against Femen, and called Femen “white colonial feminists”.

The Huffington Post reports:

The group, which claims Femen are Islamophobes and imperialists, has opened a Facebook page featuring images of women holding up slogans such as “Nudity DOES NOT liberate me and I DO NOT need saving” and “Shame on you Femen, hijab is my right”.

On their own Facebook page, the group has said, “We are proud Muslimahs, and we’re sick of your colonial, racist rubbish disguised as ‘women’s liberation!'”

Muslim Women Against Femen spokesperson Ayesha Latif told the Huffington Post that her group does not support the calls to stone Amina Tyler.

But Femen’s Shevchenko has been unapologetic about the focus of their campaign. She wrote:

Muslim men shroud their women in black sacks of submissiveness and fear, and dread as they do the devil the moment women break free to light, peace, and freedom.

Religious dictatorship begins by enslaving women but a woman’s act of self-liberation is the first step toward destroying the sharia regime.  Topless protests are the battle flags of women’s resistance, a symbol of a woman’s acquisition of rights over her own body!

Femen is, undoubtedly, a controversial group – both in methodology and belief.

Their position on religion is hard-line. They seem to believe that a woman could not possibly choose to wear a veil as a demonstration of faith – which is perhaps just as patronizing and demeaning, as a religious institution forcing a woman to wear one.

Sara Haghdoosti, an Iranian Muslim feminist, wrote for The Punch on this issue in 2010.

If a woman walks down the street in a mini skirt and someone calls her a slut, feminists will be quick to object.  However if a Muslim woman walks down in a burqa then many feminists are happy to concede that she is oppressed, submissive and brainwashed.

Unfortunately many feminists still believe that no Muslim woman could ever choose to wear the veil of her own free will.

… Now I’m not saying all women who wear the veil choose to do so. Not at all: I’ll be the first to critique state enforced religion, or parental pressure to adopt religious behaviours.

… But to say that no woman, anywhere, under any circumstances can choose to express her faith in her choice of clothing is ludicrous.

The group’s tactics have also come under fire. Some claim that Femen’s form of protest (‘form of protest’ being another way of saying ‘getting naked’) sensationalises the issues. Instead of attempting to use reasoned debate, they are going for shock factor.

But the fact that a woman’s breasts being displayed in public does spark so much interest and outrage – when topless men wouldn’t inspire the batting a lone eyelid, let alone a worldwide double-take – almost proves the group’s core point. That men and women are not equal. That they do not have equal rights.

The group may be capitalising on the scandal they inspire – but they are doing it to draw attention to greater scandals. Bigger problems. More serious injustices.

Femen, in a statement on their Facebook, said, “Our tits are deadlier than your stones!” They may be right.