{{Three European women went on trial in Tunis on Wednesday for holding a topless anti-Islamist protest, and their French lawyer said he was confident about the outcome, despite the risk of jail sentences.}}
They were protesting the arrest of a Tunisian woman for protesting against hardline Islamists and awaiting trial for illegally possessing pepper spray
Pauline Hillier and Marguerite Stern from France and Josephine Markmann from Germany arrived in court around 0930 GMT wearing the traditional Tunisian veil, or safsari. A few dozen people had gathered outside the courthouse and shouted abuse at one of the women’s Tunisian lawyers.
“How can you defend those women?” one of the people shouted. “You are not Tunisian; you are not Muslim; you don’t have a wife or daughter.”
Patrick Klugman, who came to Tunis to represent the activists from the radical women’s group Femen, said the prosecution had decided on a charge of debauchery rather than an attack on public morals.
Klugman said Femen is accused of having committed an act of debauchery, but that there are no material facts or evidence of intent to back up the charge.
“Their bodies were not exhibited to seduce but to convey a political message… which is different than debauchery,” he told media.
{A jacket is thrown towards one of three topless activists from the Femen feminist group, as they demonstrate in front of the justice Palace in Tunis, on May 29, 2013. The women, two French and the other German, shouted: “Free Amina,” in reference to the young Tunisian woman imprisoned for protesting against hardline Islamists and awaiting trial for illegally possessing pepper spray}.
AFP
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