Feb 7, 2010, 18:14 GMT
Kiev (dpa) - Voting in Ukraine's presidential election was largely uneventful on Sunday - except for the topless women.
Ukrainian miner enter voting booth in East-Ukrainian city Donetsk, 7 February 2010. EPA/PHOTOMIG
Polling was proceeding as normal at election station Number One in Kiev's exclusive Shevchenko district, two hours after polls opened, when four women entered the premises - which usually serves as a union conference hall.
Almost demurely, the four stepped across the melting slush to a clearing in front of the tables used by election officials to unveil - as the protestors later explained - an unconventional attack on Ukrainian 'politics-as-usual.'
Defying Ukraine's current brutally cold weather, the women threw their winter coats to the floor. They were naked from the waist up bar crosses of blue tape on the demonstrators' nipples, surprised onlookers noted.
Polling site workers milled around, and voters stared, as the feminist group FEMEN members then unveiled hidden placards reading 'The last day of Democracy!', 'Don't sell your vote!', 'Don't be a slut!'
'The politicians are raping us!', one yelled, as she shook off a security man attempting - unsuccessfully - to put an end to the noisy, but ultimately peaceful protest.
Five minutes of heckling later, the four walked outside and, still naked but for low-cut trousers stuffed into their stilettos or cowboy boots, continued the demonstration for a pack of grateful news photographers waiting in sub-zero temperatures for senior politicians to show up later in the day.
Police later arrested the women, after they were first allowed to put their warm coats back on.
'All in all, it went very well,' said Tatiana Kozak, FEMEN's founder and spokeswoman, told the German News Agency dpa. 'We drew attention to ourselves and our cause, and that is the point.'
The women were all released three hours later, but only after being charged with causing a public disturbance, and each fined six dollars.
A grassroots public action group recruiting via the internet, FEMEN and its members they are right to strip for their public protests, beecause Ukrainian society is so chauvinist it is the only way to attract attention to a feminist issue.
There have been almost a dozen similar FEMEN events in Kiev and other provincial cities in the past six months.
A symbolic attack on male sexism came in November when Aleksandra Shevchenko, a statuesque blond wearing skin-tight jeans and no bra under her pink halter top, advanced on parliamentarin Nestor Shufrich, a karate black belt best known for his anti-EU sentiments.
Shevchenko's stunt, broadcast live on national TV, was to highlight a previous move by the parliamentarian to pass a bill to make the purchase of Ukrainian prostitutes' services illegal.
FEMEN, and some other feminist groups, have argued that the country's current criminal code punishes thousands of destitute women unable to earn an income by any other means, while leaving a man's purchase of a prostitute's services fully legal.
'When are you going to stop lying to people, you promised the law, where is it?' demanded Shevchenko, towering over the dimunitive Shufrich.
'Don't tell me 'calm down', where is the damn law? You lied!' she shouted at an uncharacteristically mute Shufrich.
Other recent FEMEN protests, all featuring scantily-clad young women in provocative costumes, have targeted corruption in Ukraine'spolitical leadership, poor government responses to the swine flu epidemic, and Ukraine's booming sex tourist industry, which caters almost exclusively to foreigners.
Another memorable FEMEN demonstration took place in October on a stage in Kiev's central square, where a half-dozen bikini-clad young women wrestled in on a plastic sheet covered with mud, before hundreds of onlookers.
That was to highlight 'political mudslinging during the election campaign', which had reached unacceptable levels, a (clothed) spokeswoman said.
Critics - frequently male media pundits - argue FEMEN at best is a clever Kozak strategy to advance a marketing career, and at worst a feminist fringe group too hypocritical to realize parading in public without clothes turns them into sex objects themselves.
'We have a simple approach: our only weapon is beauty,' Kozak responded. 'If we stand around holding posters we are just going to be ignored. Our politicians must pay attention to these issues, and we will do what it takes to force them to do it.'
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