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Showing Original Post only (View all)Amina Tyler/Sboui writes grafitti on World Heritage site mosque, gets arrested [View all]
Last edited Fri May 31, 2013, 02:27 PM - Edit history (4)
Here's how the BBC reported it:
Amina Tyler is charged with carrying an "incendiary object"...
Ms Tyler emerged from hiding earlier this month in Kairouan, where she wrote "Femen" on a wall near the city's main mosque...
Ms Tyler was detained by police amid clashes and tear gas as an angry crowd gathered...
Her lawyers argue that a 19th-Century charge of carrying an incendiary object should not apply to a can of pepper spray she says she had been given by a foreign journalist for her own protection. Lawyers saying they represented the city called for her to face the more serious charge of threatening public security. They were turned down by the judge.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22714130
Ms Tyler emerged from hiding earlier this month in Kairouan, where she wrote "Femen" on a wall near the city's main mosque...
Ms Tyler was detained by police amid clashes and tear gas as an angry crowd gathered...
Her lawyers argue that a 19th-Century charge of carrying an incendiary object should not apply to a can of pepper spray she says she had been given by a foreign journalist for her own protection. Lawyers saying they represented the city called for her to face the more serious charge of threatening public security. They were turned down by the judge.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22714130
In other reports, a cemetery is mentioned:
She went into hiding because of death threats but re-emerged in Kairouan, where she allegedly scrawled "Femen" on a cemetery wall near the city's main mosque.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/amina-tyler-trial-tunisians-protest-outside-femen-activist-court-case_n_3358736.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/amina-tyler-trial-tunisians-protest-outside-femen-activist-court-case_n_3358736.html
You might wonder why an "angry crowd" would gather because someone wrote something on a 'wall,' even if it was 'near' a mosque or a cemetery.
Here's the answer: those white things are the cemetery, and the wall is the wall of the Great Mosque of Kairouan.
and here's the brave protest; she spray-painted the top of the short wall surrounding the ancient graves. luckily she brought her cameraperson to record the deed.
Every city in Tunisia has a Great Mosque, but the Great Mosque in Kairouan is the most important of all. It is the oldest Muslim place of worship in Africa and is commonly regarded as the fourth holiest site in Islam (after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem).
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/tunisia/kairouan-great-mosque
The Mosque of Uqba, also known as the Great Mosque of Kairouan, is one of the most important mosques in Tunisia, situated in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Kairouan...Built by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi from 670 AD at the founding of the city of Kairouan...it is one of the oldest places of worship in the Islamic world, as well as a model for all later mosques in the Maghreb...one of the masterpieces of both architecture and Islamic art...
The minaret...is the world's oldest minaret still standing...The dome... is one of the oldest and most remarkable domes in the western Islamic world... (it is) one of the few religious buildings of Islam has remained intact almost all of its architectural and decorative elements... a veritable museum of Islamic decorative art and architecture...At the time of its greatest splendor...Kairouan was one of the greatest centers of Islamic civilization...During this period, the Great Mosque of Kairouan was both a place of prayer and a center for teaching Islamic sciences under the Maliki current. One may conceivably compare its role to that of the University of Paris during the Middle Ages...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Uqba
The minaret...is the world's oldest minaret still standing...The dome... is one of the oldest and most remarkable domes in the western Islamic world... (it is) one of the few religious buildings of Islam has remained intact almost all of its architectural and decorative elements... a veritable museum of Islamic decorative art and architecture...At the time of its greatest splendor...Kairouan was one of the greatest centers of Islamic civilization...During this period, the Great Mosque of Kairouan was both a place of prayer and a center for teaching Islamic sciences under the Maliki current. One may conceivably compare its role to that of the University of Paris during the Middle Ages...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Uqba
Thus, the angry crowd. A $182 fine seems a just penalty for defacing (or attempting to deface, the french coverage sounds a bit different, but i have only tourist french so if someone more fluent than google wants to translate...)
This is not Amina's home; she traveled there (about 2 hours from tunis) to do her demo, and the press covered it.
http://www.tuniscope.com/index.php/article/25619/actualites/tunisie/amina-femen-kairouan-150514
Personally, I see her as a provocateur. The only interests I see her 'protests' serving are the interests of the religious right and the forces of chaos.
Other amina news:
Now her family name is not 'tyler' but sboui (or perhaps both):
http://www.thenewstribe.com/2013/05/30/tunisia-femen-activist-amina-sboui-faces-new-charges-to-be-held/
And now her father, whom DU posters once speculated to be some stereotypical 'islamic male' who wanted to put her in a burqa, is also in the news:
Sbouis father was present in court and expressed his support for his daughter.
I am proud of my daughter who has honored the rights of women, Mounir Sboui told The Associated Press. Maybe her acts were rash, but this is her way of expressing these ideas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/tunisians-demonstrate-outside-trial-for-femen-activist-calling-for-greater-charges/2013/05/30/a2a57bf2-c919-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html
I am proud of my daughter who has honored the rights of women, Mounir Sboui told The Associated Press. Maybe her acts were rash, but this is her way of expressing these ideas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/tunisians-demonstrate-outside-trial-for-femen-activist-calling-for-greater-charges/2013/05/30/a2a57bf2-c919-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_story.html
Oh, & here's how the FEMEN 'feminists' are reacting:
During the Wednesday protest (in Tunis) in her support, three European activists two French and one German chanted Free Amina with the slogan breast feed revolution scrawled across their topless bodies.
An investigation will be opened into the foreign activists, according to a statement from the prosecutor at the Tunis Court of First Instance. Acts of indecency can be punished by at least six months in prison under Tunisian law.
However, Femens leader in Paris, Inna Shevchenko, told AFP that her group did not care whether Tunisian law punished any attack on public morals.
We dont take any notice of this kind of thing. In these countries the law is applied as it suits (those in power). In Tunisia, we see that people run the risk of two years in prison just for simple graffiti, she said.
She noted that it is the first action to be taken by her group in the Arab world and that three activists were prepared in Paris before they were sent to Tunisia on Tuesday. These countries and these totalitarian regimes prey on women, Shevchenko said.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/31052013-tunisia-arrests-topless-activists/
An investigation will be opened into the foreign activists, according to a statement from the prosecutor at the Tunis Court of First Instance. Acts of indecency can be punished by at least six months in prison under Tunisian law.
However, Femens leader in Paris, Inna Shevchenko, told AFP that her group did not care whether Tunisian law punished any attack on public morals.
We dont take any notice of this kind of thing. In these countries the law is applied as it suits (those in power). In Tunisia, we see that people run the risk of two years in prison just for simple graffiti, she said.
She noted that it is the first action to be taken by her group in the Arab world and that three activists were prepared in Paris before they were sent to Tunisia on Tuesday. These countries and these totalitarian regimes prey on women, Shevchenko said.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/31052013-tunisia-arrests-topless-activists/
Except Tunisia, unlike say Saudi Arabia, doesn't have a 'totalitarian regime'. Why is FEMEN in Tunisia, and not Saudi Arabia?
I think it's to provoke and to give ammunition to the far right. So that tunisia can descend into civil war, chaos, and extremism like the rest of the middle east. and yeah, there are factions in the world who would like that result, and they're not just factions of the islamic far right.
wtf does 'breast feed revolution' have to do with amina's actions, political tensions in tunisia, or any kind of 'feminism' in this context? it's just mindless provocation.
and in reference to that hypothesis, I link a previous OP about an interview amina did with a blogger associated with Freedom House, part of the NED/USAID orbit:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022765207
Here are the actual charges so far as I can discern from reading various media:
A court convicted the Tunisian member of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen Tuesday for carrying an "incendiary object" and fined her $182. She remains in custody pending more serious charges. (For having pepper spray; her lawyers argued "that the 1894 statute on "incendiary objects" should not apply to her can of pepper spray."
Prosecutors on Thursday, however, said they are considering bringing more serious charges against her, including desecrating a cemetery and offending public decency, according to defense lawyer Mokhtar Jannene. (those are the charges for which she might get two years).
Sboui will appear in court again June 5.
http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_23351990/tunisians-protest-outside-trial-femen-activist
Massachusetts grafitti law:
Section 126A. Whoever intentionally, willfully and maliciously or wantonly, paints, marks, scratches, etches or otherwise marks, injures, mars, defaces or destroys the real or personal property of another including but not limited to a wall, fence, building, sign, rock, monument, gravestone or tablet, shall be punished by imprisonment in a state prison for a term of not more than three years or by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two years or by a fine of not more than fifteen hundred dollars or not more than three times the value of the property so marked, injured, marred, defaced or destroyed, whichever is greater, or both imprisonment and fine, and shall also be required to pay for the removal or obliteration of such painting, marking, scratching or etching...
http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter266/Section126A
http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter266/Section126A
so far she got a $182 fine (300 dinar).
we'll see if she does worse than she would have in massachusetts.
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Amina Tyler/Sboui writes grafitti on World Heritage site mosque, gets arrested [View all]
HiPointDem
May 2013
OP
It is odd the the BBC link fails to mention the cemetary wall being vandalised.
dipsydoodle
May 2013
#1
there's only one 'wall' there, and it's the wall surrounding the mosque or the very short wall
HiPointDem
May 2013
#36
it's a 'wall' surrounding an ancient graveyard beside the mosque, within the mosque complex, a
HiPointDem
May 2013
#39
ps: no idea why she was initially styled "tyler". i haven't read anything about it being because
HiPointDem
May 2013
#12
Your crazy CT about Amina's links to CIA, World Bank, etc. didn't mention that FEMEN is also
idwiyo
May 2013
#8
i didn't write any OP like that. neither did i get any of the information from any site like that.
HiPointDem
May 2013
#9
Your CT about Amina's links to CIA, etc fits right in with the rest of the CTs about FEMEN links
idwiyo
May 2013
#10
You forgot about all your posts where you kept pointing that her last name is Tyler?
idwiyo
May 2013
#15
1. i remember posts where i speculated about whether she had a foreign husband or father.
HiPointDem
May 2013
#32
Speculating that her father could be a foreigner with the last name like Tyler, bringing up
idwiyo
May 2013
#73
It should ring a Bell--this CT. All it lacks is Bill Gates, Detroit, and North Korea. nt
msanthrope
May 2013
#17
I am sure Bill Gates is implicated in it one way or another. Wouldn't be surprised if Dear Leader
idwiyo
May 2013
#26
Sure he would! It's the only way he can buy yellow cake from Africa - pay FEMEN to overthrow
idwiyo
May 2013
#30
OMG! I think we uncovered GLOBAL conspiracy! THANK YOU for pointing connection to Iran and
idwiyo
May 2013
#60
+1. We should be asking that people spreading this shit on DU get exiled to the Dungeon. n/t
backscatter712
May 2013
#19
Well, this OP should ring a Bell, so if we have a Zombie Dungeon, yeah...n t
msanthrope
May 2013
#27
"Thanks for this excellent post." Did you copy-and-paste this all by yourself? n/t
backscatter712
May 2013
#25
Sheesh, are you ever going to grow up and start mindlessly obeying existing institutional authority?
Zorra
May 2013
#37
yes, far better to defy it mindlessly and give fuel to the fundies when the country is in danger of
HiPointDem
May 2013
#40
Really? You want us to be good little Democrats and appease right wingers yet again?
Zorra
May 2013
#46
provocations bring recruits to the right. there are other ways to defy them that don't.
HiPointDem
Jun 2013
#95
why are *you* so outraged? you just can't stop. i really admire the work our people are doing
HiPointDem
May 2013
#49
you're getting boring. just smoke. goodbye, i'll leave the thread to you & your buddies.
HiPointDem
May 2013
#57
Hmm, woman does act of political theater/civil disobedience, pays price.
Comrade Grumpy
May 2013
#24
I notice that you've made your points without stooping to insult anyone who might have a different
redqueen
May 2013
#31
That's one hell of a nasty website. Mind you, it's tame to compare it to some other shit I saw
idwiyo
May 2013
#70
Wow. This OP is... well. I don't know whether to be flattered you went to all this trouble
riderinthestorm
May 2013
#78
Can you please stop inventing bullshit to be outraged about? Is't there enough problems IRL for you?
idwiyo
Jun 2013
#81
Amina is sending messages through dyeing her hair blond and wearing shorts? Are you OK?
idwiyo
Jun 2013
#86
once again what is "breast feed revolution" ? It's a clear cut question. Why avoid it?
bettyellen
Jun 2013
#87
No, but I did get the impression that Femen did. Blonde, lots of makeup, daisy dukes, no flab...
bettyellen
Jun 2013
#90
I forgot ~ The breastfeed revolution is women being allowed to expose their breasts and feed their
Zorra
Jun 2013
#85
Wow, never heard of it. My initial impression was that it was a bad translation!
bettyellen
Jun 2013
#89