Protesters feminist warriors, court told
Femen activist charged for baring breasts
• With a parade of defendants on trial for such offences as driving impaired, jumping subway turnstiles or rolling through stop signs, Montreal municipal court is rarely the theatre of intellectual debate.
But on Thursday, the courtroom of Judge Guylaine Lavigne felt more like a lecture hall as Femen activist Neda Topaloski presented her defence against charges arising from a 2015 protest.
In the first Canadian criminal trial of a Femen member, Topaloski faces two charges of mischief and one charge of causing a disturbance following her topless protest at a Montreal street fair celebrating the annual Grand Prix auto race.
Martine Delvaux, a literature professor at Université du Québec à Montréal, testified that the Femen movement occupies an important place in the history of feminist protest.
She traced the origins of today’s bare-breasted activists as far back as the Amazon warriors of Greek mythology and Lady Godiva in 11th-century England, who, legend has it, rode naked on her horse to protest taxes.
Delvaux noted that Topaloski and other Femen activists paint messages across their bare torsos, scream slogans during their actions and assume a forceful stance.
“It’s the opposite of erotic. They are saying they are warriors,” she told the court. “It’s a body that yells . … It’s not a body that’s there to be admired.”
Femen began in Ukraine in 2008 as a statement against the objectification of women by the sex industry. They first surfaced in Quebec in 2013, and Delvaux was the first Quebec researcher to study the group.
She said Femen actions are planned for maximum effect, but they are non-violent. Members learn how to project their voices and to remain strong when authorities try to dislodge them.
Topaloski, accused of causing $2,546 worth of damages to an Alfa Romeo race car that was on display, said she was trained “to resist, to remain upright and strong.”
Video of the June 4, 2015, altercation shows security guards struggling to remove Topaloski as she drapes herself across the car and then clings onto a nearby post, yelling, “Montreal is not a brothel.” She and a fellow Femen member were protesting the sex trade — which researchers say experiences a surge in demand during the annual Grand Prix event — and the objectification of women.
Eventually a heavy-set security guard pulls her from the post and she is dragged away by the feet, her bare chest scraping along the asphalt.
The judge is scheduled to rule on the case Feb. 15.