Topless Protest Putin’s Visit To Germany: Why Was A Women’s Rights Group Protesting?

During a visit to a trade fair in the East German city of Hanover focusing on Russian business, Russian President Vladimir Putin was confronted by three members of the women's rights group Femen. The activists, who were stripped to the waist and had slogans painted on them, reportedly ran toward Putin and shouted at him, calling him a "dictator." Putin reacted with something akin to delight, giving the women two thumbs up. The German newspaper Der Spiegel has a gallery of NSFW photos from the incident here.

The protest by Femen was the latest in a long line of protests against the detention of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, who were charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and sentenced to two years in prison for staging a minute-long "protest prayer" in February 2012. During the act, which took place inside Christ Savior Cathedral, one of Moscow's most famous houses of worship, the band members screamed, "Mother Mary, please drive Putin away" and used a number of epithets, including one aimed at the Orthodox Russian Patriarch, who has called Putin's rule a "miracle from God." Following the announcement of the band's sentence in August, small protests were held in dozens of cities around the world, including New York City, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin and Washington, D.C.

Femen is based in the Ukraine, where the Guardian has reported it has an "international training camp" which instructs feminists on the art of naked protest, among other things. In the Guardian's article about the camp, published in September 2012, one member said the topless or naked protests are meant as a strike against the three main evils of a global "patriarchal society" -- sexual exploitation, dictatorship and religion -- and called this form of protest a reappropriation of their own bodies from exploitative spheres like that of pornography.

Putin was accompanied during his visit to Hanover by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seeking to strengthen economic ties with Russia but has expressed concern over Russia's human rights record. Raids were carried out recently by the Russian government against NGOs operating in the country. Putin maintains the raids were conducted out of the need to monitor the flow of foreign funding entering Russia, which he claims comes to the tune of $1 billion in four months. A new law requires NGOs to register as "foreign agents" if they have foreign funding and are involved in politics, which has raised hackles among many NGO workers. Merkel underlined her opposition to the new law, which has affected German NGOs there, and said it was important that they be able to work "without fear or worry" to help create "a lively civil society."

Merkel grew up in East Germany under communist rule. Putin formerly worked there as an agent with the KGB.