PARIS: Three European women with feminist protest group Femen arrived in Paris on Thursday after they were freed from a Tunisian jail where they were held for baring their breasts in public.
The three, two Frenchwomen and a German, were released from a prison in northeastern Tunisia on Wednesday after an appeals court suspended their sentences when they apologized for their protest.
Marguerite Stern and Pauline Hillier from France and Josephine Markmann from Germany were detained after staging their bare-breasted protest in Tunis on May 29.
They were sentenced on June 12 to four months in jail for indecency and an attack on public morals over the protest in support of Amina Sboui, a detained Tunisian activist with the same group. The trio were greeted by the head of the French branch of Femen, Inna Shevchenko, and the group’s lawyer Patrick Klugman after arriving at Paris’s Orly airport.
Surrounded by police, the three women emerged into the airport arrivals area with their right fists raised over their heads, before leaving in a taxi without making statements to journalists.
“We welcomed them, we took them in our arms. They seem tired but the important thing is that they are here,” a fellow member of the group, Sarah Constantin, told reporters at the airport.
“We’ve won one battle, but as long as Amina remains in prison, we will continue to fight,” she said.
Klugman said the three did not regret their protest despite their apology to the court.
“What they expressed were regrets about the way their action was perceived,” he said. “They do not, however, regret their action or its meaning.”
Sboui was arrested for painting the group’s name on a wall near a cemetery in the central city of Kairouan last month, in protest against a planned gathering of radicals. She risks prison terms of two years and six months respectively for desecrating a cemetery and indecency.
The jailing of the three European activists, on charges of indecency and attacking public morals, were criticized as harsh by international rights groups and European capitals.
French government spokeswoman and Women’s Rights Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem welcomed their release.
“I share the relief of their families,” Vallaud-Belkacem told AFP.
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Femen activists land in Paris after leaving Tunisia jail
Femen activists land in Paris after leaving Tunisia jail
Hamas official says group in final stage of choosing new chief
CAIRO: A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian movement was in the final phase of selecting a new leader, with two prominent figures competing for the position.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
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