(ANSAmed) - TUNIS - In a surprise move, especially for the many women who had taken her side, Amina Sboui announced Tuesday she had left Femen, whom she accused of being ''Islamophobic'' and of being funded with ''shady money''. After saying a few days ago that she did not want to speak to journalists any longer - out of concern that her words would be misinterpreted - the Tunisian girl chose Huffington Post Maghreb to announce her departure from the feminist movement.

The group had put her at the center of its protests in recent months and had staunchly defended Amina when she was put in jail. Amina claims that the group hold Islamophobic views and that she "did not approve of the protest where the girls cried 'Amina Akbar, Femen Akbar' in front of the Tunisian embassy in France, or when they burnt the Tawheed (Salafist) flag in front of the Paris mosque".

''You have to respect the religion of others,'' she added. The leader of the Ukraine-based feminist movement, Inna Shevchenko, said that Amina had not only offended Femen with her decision but also all the women who protested on her behalf. In reference to "Free Amina", she said that ''it's thanks to this campaign that Amina is out of prison.'' The partnership born a few months ago due to Amina's courage tinged with thoughtlessness, with her provocative actions making Femen well known beyond European and Western environments and into the Arab and Muslim world, has thus come to an end. Amina began by imitating Femen activists, posting a bare-chested picture of herself on her Facebook page in an act of defiance against those (the message clearly targeted Islamic fundamentalists) seeking to marginalise women's role in Tunisia.

The photos and ensuing polemics led Amina to challenge Salafis on their 'own territory' (in Kairouan, where a gathering had been planned) and paying for it with arrest and months in detention. What she will be doing next is unknown. Shevchenko has said that the reason stated for leaving Femen has given fundamentalists a chance to cry victory: as they are already doing, on various websites. Some secular media outlets have instead found it difficult to understand what exactly caused the girl's abrupt about-face.(ANSAmed).

Via: ansamed.info

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