Jailed Femen activists apologise for topless Tunisia protest
Two French and one German woman with the protest group Femen apologised on Wednesday at their appeals trial for their topless protest in Tunis in May. The three women have been jailed in Tunisia since June for indecency.
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"We didn't expect to shock Tunisians to this extent,” Pauline Hillier, one of the French women implicated in the case, told the AFP News Agency. “It is out of the question that we would do it again.”
Josephine Markmann, the German member of the group, said she regretted the act and apologised.
Lawyers for several Islamist groups, who were angered by the protest, have sought to participate in the trial as a civil party.
They had asked that the appeals trial be delayed so that they could further consult the file, however, the judge denied their request.
Patrick Klugman, a French defense lawyer, claimed that the Islamic associations were only using the strategy to “prevent the case from ever being resolved.”
Klugman added that the women did not think their topless protest would be taken with such shock, given that Tunisia had recently “rose up for freedom,” as part of the Arab Spring protests.
The women are appealing their four-month sentence, after being arrested on 29 May outside Tunis’s main courthouse following a protest where they bared their breasts in support of detained Tunisian activist Amina Sboui.
The judge was expected to have a verdict by the end of the day on Wednesday.
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