Tunisia Detains, Expels Ukraine Topless Activist

Tunisian police detained a Ukrainian topless activist in the capital Tunis before expelling her from the North African country on Tuesday, a leader of the women's protest movement Femen said.

"Some men entered her hotel room, ordered her to take her belongings and drove to the police... She was deported and is now on a plane to Kiev. Her passport has been given to the pilot," Femen's leader in Paris, Inna Shevchenko, told Agence France Presse on the phone.

The Tunisian interior ministry, which deals with such issues, could not be reached for comment on the matter late on Tuesday.

The young woman, Alexandra Shevchenko, had gone to "support her colleagues during their trial tomorrow," the Femen leader said, referring to a trial of three European topless activists to be held in Tunis.

"The special services knew that a member of Femen was in the city and they were afraid. Tunisia has shown its true dictatorial colors," said Inna Shevchenko, who is not related to the detained woman.

The three activists, two French and one German, face jail terms of up to a year when they go on trial after staging a topless protest last week.

They are charged with public indecency for the protest outside the main courthouse in Tunis in support of Amina Sboui, a Tunisian activist who was arrested after painting the word "Femen" on a wall near a cemetery in an act of protest against hardline Islamists.

Sboui is also due to appear before an investigating judge on Wednesday. She faces possible charges of indecency and desecrating a cemetery.