Topless Tunisian Activist Safe After Death Threats

A Tunisian woman who prompted an outcry and death threats by posting provocative topless photos of herself online is safe at home, her lawyer tells Tunisia Live, contradicting reports that she'd been sent to a psychiatric hospital or worse. Amina Tyler, 19, started a firestorm two weeks ago by posting photos of feminist messages scrawled across her naked chest. In one she wrote in Arabic, "My body belongs to me, and is not the source of the honor of anyone." In another she simply wrote, in English, "F--k your morals."

That prompted some of her family to publicly disown her, and a prominent Salafist cleric told a Tunisian newspaper that she should be punished with 80 to 100 lashes, or even stoned to death. The head of Tunisia's wing of the feminist group FEMEN told the Atlantic that Tyler's family had sent her to a psychiatric hospital—one aunt posted a video online saying Tyler "had decided to kill herself and so posted nude pictures of herself online." But now her lawyer, a prominent women's rights activist, says Tyler is at home, and "has never been in a psychiatric facility." She has so far not been charged with any crime. (More Amina Tyler stories.)