ROME, 26 Dec 2017:
A bizarre scene unfolded in Vatican City on Christmas Day when a topless female activist – while screaming “God is woman” – attempted to snatch a baby Jesus statue from a Nativity scene, but was quickly whisked away by police as she lunged for it.
The topless activist from the feminist group Femen – who tried to snatch the statue of the baby Jesus from the Nativity scene in St Peter’s Square – had the same slogan painted on her bare back.
A Vatican gendarme stopped her from taking the statue and she was detained. The incident happened about two hours before Pope Francis delivered his Christmas message to some 50,000 people in the square.
She was later identified as Alisa Vinogradova and a “sextremist” by Femen, a Ukraine activist group whose goal is to gain “complete victory over patriarchy,” according to its website. Femen said its mission is “protest” and its weapons are “bare breasts.”
“Femen considers the anti-war policy of the Vatican a rough medieval attack on the freedom of women and their natural rights,” it wrote in its blog about the incident.
“Femen encourages women to follow the example of the movement and kidnap babies from religious denominations, thus, stating their right to use of their own body!”
A Femen activist staged a similar action on Christmas Day 2014 but managed to take the statue out of the crib before she was arrested.
– Reuters