Brussels, 13/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 13 June, the European Union voiced surprise at the “severity” of the prison sentences imposed, in Tunisia, on three European activists of the Femen group, two French nationals and one German national, for having bared their breasts in public in Tunis in a protest demonstration.
France and Germany have criticised the severity of the sentence (four months in jail) while European diplomatic circles have not given an official, clear reaction. This is said to be because they are embarrassed to openly defend the European Femen members who demonstrated in Tunisia which is currently under Islamist governance.
Michael Mann, the spokesman for Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that generally speaking the EU does not comment on legal decisions. However, Ashton is surprised by the severity of the sentence, mainly given the Tunisian court's decisions regarding other recent acts of violence, he said.
Beyond the Femen affair, Mann said, the EU hopes to reiterate its call for strengthening freedom of expression in line with the aspirations of the Tunisian revolution. Europeans hope in particular that the laws of the former regime will be revised as they may be used to restrict that freedom, he says.
The Tunisian democratic opposition continues to deplore the forbearance long shown by religious extremists responsible for perpetrating violence. A political assassination (of the democrat, secular politician Chokri Belaïd) remains unpunished, and those who attacked the US Embassy in Tunisia received only a suspended sentence which aroused bitter comments from Washington.
In a press release, the S&D Group expresses indignation at the penalties against the three European members of the Femen group. S&D Vice-President Véronique de Keyser states her unconditional attachment to freedom of expression in Tunisia and elsewhere. She intimated to EUROPE that, in their view, the problem is not the severity of the sentence as Ashton and the French and German governments say, but the fact that there was a sentence at all.
The three European Femen activists, who have been in prison since 29 May, were sentenced on Wednesday to a jail sentence of four months and one day for being guilty of public indecency and offending public morality in support of their imprisoned Tunisian fellow Femen member, Amina Sboui. (FB/transl.jl)