International Young Naturists Organisation
Naturist Resources => Blogs, Videos, Articles about Naturism/Nudity => Topic started by: Pitti on November 17, 2011, 04:07:13 pm
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A report number 10748 was filed this morning with the Egyptian Attorney general to lay charges according to the Blasphemy law Article 98(f) of the Penal Code, as amended by Law 147/2006 states the penalty for blasphemy and similar crimes:against Aliaa al Mahdi for posing nude on her blog. The memo also includes Aliaa’s boyfriend Karim Amer. The plaintiffs want article 98 of the Egyptian law applied to Aliaa and Karim for aiding and incitement:article 98 Shariaa States:Confinement for a period of not less than six months and not exceeding five years, or a fine of not less than five hundred pounds and not exceeding one thousand pounds shall be the penalty inflicted on whoever makes use of religion in propagating, either by words, in writing, or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purpose of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it, or damaging national unity.
An Egyptian blogger is defying the Islamic prudes in her country by taking it all off — and posting the pictures on the web.
Aliaa Magda Elmahdy said it’s her body to bare.
“I have the right to live freely in any place,” Elmahdy wrote on her blog. “I feel happy and self satisfied when I feel that I’m really free,” she said.
Under the heading “fan a’ry,” which means nude art, Elmahdy posted several pictures of herself in the buff, including one with strategically placed yellow rectangles.
“The yellow rectangles on my eyes, mouth and sex organ resemble the censoring of our knowledge, expression and sexuality,” wrote Elmahdy, who turns 20 on Wednesday.
On her Facebook page, Elmahdy wrote that she was “echoing screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy.”
A media arts student at the American University in Cairo, Elmahdy took the pictures at her parent’s place. Her blog also has a photo of a seated naked man holding a guitar.
While placing provocative pictures on the Web rarely raise eyebrows in the West, in an increasingly conservative Egypt what Elmahdy did is an unprecedented act of defiance.
Egyptian women have long enjoyed relatively more personal freedom than their female counterparts in other parts of the Arab world, but a worrying result of the ouster of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak has been the rise of the Islamic Brotherhood and other religious parties.
Western clothing, once common for middle class women, has given way increasingly to head scarves and more modest attire.
And art students like Elmhady can no longer draw nude models because they’ve been banned.
source: http://liberallifestyles.com/?p=19975&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=egyptian-art-student-aliaa-maged-elmahdy-20-poses-nude-for-womans-freedom (http://liberallifestyles.com/?p=19975&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=egyptian-art-student-aliaa-maged-elmahdy-20-poses-nude-for-womans-freedom)
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A brave woman to the Egyptian government says: "My body belongs to me"
I admire this woman for her courage.
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She is a very, very brave chica and I hope this works out for her. I somehow fear it will not.
She is an art student, and all of that is in keeping with her passion.
http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/ (http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/)
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She is a very, very brave chica and I hope this works out for her. I somehow fear it will not.
She is an art student, and all of that is in keeping with her passion.
http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/ (http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/)
:323232 brave indeed!!!!
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(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X2bPiYixIQM/Tr8-f3RWvcI/AAAAAAAAA-A/KwFxAoErwFc/s1600/tumblr_lukp9qbe9M1r1oy6fo1_1280.png)
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I hope she can get away from these charges. Is there something we can do for her?
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Cool. Much respect to Alia :)
I hope her courage isn't met with violence by those too ignorant to appreciate her cause.
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Israelis strip in support of Egypt blogger
Dozens of Israeli women stripped off their clothes Saturday in a show of solidarity with the 20-year-old Egyptian blogger who caused a stir in the Arab world last week when she posted a naked photo of herself in protest against the limits on free expression in her country.
Touched by the spirited protest measure, some 40 Israelis posed for a nude group shot in support of the Egyptian activist, Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, who received threats and harsh criticism for her actions. Unlike Elmahdy, however, the Israeli women did not fully display their intimate parts for the camera.
The brains behind the operation is Or Tepler, 28, who opened a Facebook event inviting women "to show support in a non-violent and legitimate way for a woman who is just like us – young, ambitious, full of dreams and evidently has a developed sense of humor."
(http://s.glbimg.com/jo/g1/f/original/2011/11/20/mulheresnuasisrael620.jpg)
"Girls, let's give the world a good reason to see the unique beauty of Israeli women," Tepler wrote. "Regardless of whether they are Jewish, Arab, straight or Lesbian – because here, as of now, it doesn't matter. (…) Let us show the doubters that our international discourse doesn't depend on governments."
'I won't deny being a leftist'
More than 100 women said they would attend. The participants were photographed holding a sign saying "Love without Limits," and "Homage to Aliaa Elmahdi. Sisters in Israel."
"I got the idea the day that the blogger's photo was posted," Tepler told Ynet. "I didn't expect that she would get the response that she got. It got on my nerves that she received a quarter of a million abusive comments and death threats. (…) I felt that when a liberal, enlightened woman in Cairo cannot express herself and gets threats from her state, I should show solidarity.
"Of course there's the nationalistic aspect, and I won't deny being a leftist and a seeker of peace," she added. "I feel like the governments don't represent the enlightened, simple people who want peace."
Tepler, who was active in the social protest movement over the summer, made efforts to get in touch with Elmahdy, but was unsuccessful.
"She's as popular as Daphni Leef on the 14th of July," she explained. "I sent her an e-mail, but I saw that her Twitter and Facebook account have been closed. People really want to take her down, while we want to show her that there are many groups that support her."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4150344,00.html (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4150344,00.html)
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Any news about this incident?
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I anticipate more such incidents in the future. The arab world as a whole seems to be growing more conservative. Just imagine what her punishments might be if the muslim brotherhood were in charge.
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This is very sad. I hope she gets through this and the Egyptians find a way to live with each other. I know many Christian groups are afraid of what might happen in Egypt, churches have already seen violence there since the revolution.
~Jet
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I'd say stop by her blogspot and show her some support! The sand grain of support in the sea of violence can make a huge difference! Show our naked sister that she isn't alone!
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Great to see that she still updates her blog.
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Here she is - Alia Al-Mahdi Demonstrates Naked in Sweden – Photos http://www.athensreport.com/alia-al-mahdi-demonstrates-naked-in-sweden-photos/ (http://www.athensreport.com/alia-al-mahdi-demonstrates-naked-in-sweden-photos/)
(I'd link the article and photos, but since the subject is sensitive, I just put the lURL).
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I think this is a great picture. Unfortunately, I'm sure its very true.
(http://s2.postimage.org/qfh4jy105/Think_I_Do.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/qfh4jy105/)
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Egypt May Strip Nude Photo Revolutionary of Her Citizenship
(http://www.richardsonmag.com/assets/e8a04238-59c3-11e2-be71-af4c9e748887)
Alia al-Mahdy, the Egyptian activist known for politically exposing her naked body, did so again last month in a protest video made with members of the Russian group FEMEN. The video is a protest against the current government’s constitution, which al-Mahdy and others believes institutionalizes Islamist views on, and against, women.
Now, Islamists are petitioning the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt to strip her of her citizenship.
According to Al Arabiya, an Egyptian Islamist activist, Mahmoud Abdel Rahman, has petitioned the country’s public prosecutors, suing for them to revoke her citizenship and to put her on a watch list that would allow public officials to arrest her should she return to her homeland.
“By standing there naked,” Abel Rahman wrote in his complaint, referring to her video with FEMEN, “she tarnished the image of Egypt and derided religion.”
The hate and rage directed at al-Mahdy since she took part in the protest has not been limited to legal measures. She told the Egyptian news publication al-Watan that she’s been getting death threats.
“If I go back to Egypt, I will be put in jail and I might be killed if the current regime remains in power.”
Islamists are hardly the only group to condemn al-Mahdy, noted the online magazine Jadaliyya in an interesting essay on the implications of her protest. From her first photo in late October of 2011, liberals have screamed condemnation as loudly as any bearded, barefoot would-be mullah.
The April 6 Youth Movement, an early Facebook-based youth protest group, went so far as to shamefully accuse her of being part of a conspiracy against them. “How can we have accepted the membership of a girl who behaves like this?” they asked, in an apparent vacuum of self-awareness.
The shaky rationale for her condemnation by Egyptian liberal groups is that al-Mahdy has given Islamists a pretext for attacking those who do not want an Islamist regime.
“They have double standards,” al-Mahdy said. “They claim they believe in freedom, but they never practice what they preach.”
Another revolutionary woman, in a different place, at a different time, said something that could have been written today, and could have been written to Alia:
“I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.”
When in doubt, always back the naked chick.
http://www.richardsonmag.com/post/217003/egypt-may-strip-nude-photo-revolutionary-of-her-citizenship (http://www.richardsonmag.com/post/217003/egypt-may-strip-nude-photo-revolutionary-of-her-citizenship)
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Egypt May Strip Nude Photo Revolutionary of Her Citizenship
(http://www.richardsonmag.com/assets/e8a04238-59c3-11e2-be71-af4c9e748887)
Alia al-Mahdy, the Egyptian activist known for politically exposing her naked body, did so again last month in a protest video made with members of the Russian group FEMEN. The video is a protest against the current government’s constitution, which al-Mahdy and others believes institutionalizes Islamist views on, and against, women.
Now, Islamists are petitioning the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt to strip her of her citizenship.
According to Al Arabiya, an Egyptian Islamist activist, Mahmoud Abdel Rahman, has petitioned the country’s public prosecutors, suing for them to revoke her citizenship and to put her on a watch list that would allow public officials to arrest her should she return to her homeland.
“By standing there naked,” Abel Rahman wrote in his complaint, referring to her video with FEMEN, “she tarnished the image of Egypt and derided religion.”
The hate and rage directed at al-Mahdy since she took part in the protest has not been limited to legal measures. She told the Egyptian news publication al-Watan that she’s been getting death threats.
“If I go back to Egypt, I will be put in jail and I might be killed if the current regime remains in power.”
This is horrible :0988
Thanks for the update though
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(http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/Cu58YxVV5w8/0.jpg)
In December, Aliaa Elmahdy participated in a public nude protest outside the Egyptian embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Despite the freezing weather, she stood sandwiched between two other, also naked, members of the radical feminist organization Femen with the words “Sharia is not a constitution” in red paint across her chest and stomach. In the photo of the three-person rally above, she doesn't look uncomfortable at all, or even angry—she seems more amused that someone's taking her picture than anything.
This wasn’t Aliaa’s first time making headlines for nudity: In 2011, while living in Egypt, she uploaded photos to her blog in which she wore nothing more than a flower in her hair, red shoes, and thigh-high polka-dot stockings. This was, she claimed, a form of protest against “the oppression of women in Egypt.” After the image went viral and she began receiving death threats and was kidnapped, the 21-year-old was given political asylum in Sweden, where she linked up with Femen—the international activist group founded in Ukraine best known for their topless protests across Europe on behalf of women’s rights and against religion and the sex industry.
Femen has succeeded in gathering a lot of attention for, among other things, protesting the inclusion of Islamist countries in the Olympics and taking a chainsaw to a cross in Kiev, Ukraine that was a memorial to victims of Stalin’s murderous regime. The group has been criticized for many things, including being “inarticulate about what it stands for.” But regardless of how you feel about the organization, it’s undeniable that Aliaa had to have some balls to pose nude in Egypt, and her actions have made her a pariah in her homeland. Even though that Stockholm protest was 2,000 miles away from Egypt, the Egyptian interior ministry is still bringing charges against her for “blasphemy” and “damanging the country’s reputation.” After finding out that she’s recently started up a Femen branch in Egypt—a country that has become notorious for committing violence against women—and has asked Egyptian women to email nude photos for her to post online, I got in touch with her to see how much progress had been made.
VICE: Hi Aliaa, how’s your work with Femen coming along? What do you guys do?
Aliaa Elmahdy: We make nude protests—like the one we made in Stockholm. We protest about many issues, about gay rights, about prostitution. In Egypt, and maybe everywhere to some degree, when a woman claims her body—when she’s naked but not for sex—it just annoys people so much that she’s not covered. They think there’s something wrong with her.
Do your parents approve of your work with Femen and what you’re doing?
They know what I’m doing, but we’re not in contact.
So they disapprove?
Mmmhmm.
Tell me about Femen in Egypt. How is that going?
After I protested with Femen, I thought about making a branch of Femen in Egypt and then I made a Facebook page. In Egypt we are treated like goods, exactly like goods. They even use expressions like “used” and “opened” [to describe women]. When a man marries a woman he says, “I will take her,” like, “OK, I will take this skirt.” Like he owns them. Even my parents told me, “Now you’re cheap, you’re doing this for free,” when I had a boyfriend.
What do you hope to accomplish in Egypt?
I hope it encourages others to break from this fear and talk openly about rejecting Sharia or the constitution—nobody dares to do this. I hope that one day there will be Femen everywhere.
So what made you pose nude the first time you did and post it online?
At first I took the photo on my camera and after some time I was uploading photos from my camera and thought about posting it as a way of expressing something.
Expressing what?
That I’m not ashamed of my body. And I expressed that with every item I was wearing. For example, the flower in my hair—my mother used to tell me, “No, this is too much, don’t wear it,” [because] in the street people would comment about my appearance. They tell girls in Egypt things like, “Don’t laugh, don’t walk in the street… don’t do anything.”
Did the Egyptian government threaten you?
The first time when I posted the photo there was a case [against me] and I don’t know what happened to it. Now there is another case against me and someone wants to have my nationality revoked.
How have people been reacting to your efforts to start Femen in Egypt?
Some boys sent me messages like, “Leave Egyptian girls alone.” Even when a woman sends me something and I publish it, they say leave them alone or, “You’re forcing them to do what you want.” No, I’m just letting them have a voice and say they are forced to do what you want them to do, not what they want.
I read on your blog that you are asking Egyptian women to send you nudes—
Yeah, I didn’t get photos from Egyptian women. But I got photos from men. Some of them had good messages like “Women are also free” and things like that, but no women have participated. Some also sent photos from porn sites. I got some stupid photos.
So men are participating in it too then?
The message was directed to women but men responded to it, not women. In Egypt, when a woman loses her phone she is terrified that someone will see her photos, even just a photo of her face.
Why did you have to flee to political asylum in Sweden?
If I was in Egypt right now, I would be jailed, and I got many death threats and was kidnapped before I came here.
How did this kidnapping happen?
I was staying in Alexandria, and a girl I know through Facebook kept pushing me to come and stay with her. I took my cat with me, and she took him away. I thought he jumped out the window, so I posted ads with his photo and my phone number. Then some people called, and when I went to meet them I discovered that they knew details about my life that no one would know—like I got in a fight with a girl earlier that morning and I was planning to travel for a conference. They told me they knew this girl I was staying with, and she took my cat because she didn’t like what I do.
So she stole your cat because she didn’t like the work you were doing?
At first she acted like my friend and I thought she thought the same way I do. Even though her mother didn’t like me, I didn’t think she would go that far.
Who were these people that called you?
Someone who was in contact with this girl and her mother. When they kidnapped me, they put on a mock trial—it was two men debating. One of them was like, “We will not use violence,” and one of them wanted to rape me. They said that I didn’t live in my father’s house and that I had a boyfriend. One of them said, “Someone else fucks her, so why don’t I?” And they said things about my nude photo. I don’t think they saw it, but they were talking about it being posted on Facebook. These men can have sex without marriage and they can sleep with prostitutes and do whatever they want, but I can’t?
How did you end up escaping them?
They said maybe we can take her pants off and see if she’s a virgin or not. If she’s a virgin we’ll leave her, and if not we will rape her. They let me go because one of them thought I was a virgin.
That sounds terrifying. Do any of your friends in Egypt share the same views as you?
Yeah, although many of them are hypocrites and some are jealous when someone fights for her freedom and want to hurt her—like the girl that helped kidnap me.
Would you like to return to Egypt?
Yeah, I’d like to but I don’t think Ill be able to return now.
From: http://www.vice.com/read/the-egyptian-feminist-who-was-kidnapped-for-posing-nude (http://www.vice.com/read/the-egyptian-feminist-who-was-kidnapped-for-posing-nude)
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Bloody hell. I knew she was brave already, but I had no idea she'd had to face down being kidnapped as well. Amazing woman - wish we had millions of her.
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This story continues to get more horrifying with every update. I am glad she seems ok in the interview though
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I like the way she thinks. Good luck on her cause.