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INTERVIEW WITH FEMINIST ACTIVIST AHLEM BELHADJ
Wednesday 5 June 2013 , by Ahlem Belhadji From International Viewpoint . See also Activists on Trial in Tunisia (BBC)
In Tunisia, Amina remains in prison. The young Femen, who had posed bare-breasted on social networks, was arrested in possession of a teargas bomb, leading to her trial. On Thursday May 30, 2013, new and more serious charges were notified to her, notably that of association with malefactors. Passions run high around her case, with notably the demonstration of three European Femen arrested on Wednesday May 29 before the Tunis court after stripping off their clothes. They also risk a prison sentence. Tunisian feminist organisations have not denounced Femen, even if they do not share its methods, as Ahlem Belhadj, president of the Association Tunisienne des Femmes Démocrates (ATFD – Tunisian Association of Democratic Women) explains Olivier Rogez.
Do you approve of actions of the Femen type to approve women’s rights?
Posed like that, I would say no. We don’t adopt the same methods of struggle, but we understand perfectly the choice that they made. We express solidarity with Amina against all the forms of violence that she suffers.
You say that you don’t adopt the same methods of struggle. Why is that Tunisians can’t or don’t want to adopt the same methods of struggle? Why don’t they have the possibility of demonstrating like Ukrainian or French women?
Not all feminists around the world adopt Femen, it isn’t just a question of Tunisian women. It is a question of faith in methods of struggle. Each group, each social movement, each individual, chooses the method of struggle which works for them. But we, in Tunisia, have not debated inside the ATFD, we understand that methods of struggle like this are employed, but we do not insert ourselves within them.