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FEMEN

Co-founder of Femen feminist group found dead in Paris

Oksana Shachko, one of the founders of the Femen feminist protest movement, has been found dead in her Paris apartment, the group said on Monday.

Co-founder of Femen feminist group found dead in Paris
Photo: AFP

Activists from Femen, known for its bold topless protests, said the 31-year-old Ukrainian had been found on Monday with a suicide note next to her body.

“It is with great regret and deep pain that I must confirm the death of Oksana,” said Inna Shevchenko, one of Femen's leaders, who also lives in the French capital.

Another Femen founder, Anna Gutsol, wrote on Facebook: “RIP. The most fearless and vulnerable Oksana Shachko has left us.

“We mourn together with her relatives and friends,” she said, adding that the group was awaiting “the official version from the police”.

Shachko was one of four feminist activists who founded Femen in Ukraine in 2008. 

Exiled in France since 2013, she had since left the group and was working as an artist.

Operating under the slogan “I came, I stripped, I won,” Femen quickly drew attention around the world with its bare-breasted protests against sexism.

Their protests eventually started targeting authoritarianism and racism, with Russia's Vladimir Putin a particular target, alongside France's far-right 
National Front party.

But in recent years the group has struggled with internal divisions as well as legal proceedings against its members.

In 2011, Femen said Shachko was among three members “kidnapped” by security agents and forced to strip naked in a forest after staging a topless protest mocking Belarussian strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

The agents had poured oil over the three women, threatened to set them on fire, and cut off their hair, Femen said. 

She was abducted again by unknown assailants during a visit by Putin to Ukraine, according to the group.

Femen's lawyer said Shachko was beaten so badly that she was briefly hospitalised.

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FRANÇO

Topless Femen activists disrupt rally of Franco fans in Madrid

Bare-breasted protestors from the feminist activist group Femen on Sunday disrupted a rally of some 200 people in Madrid to mark the anniversary of the death of Spain's former dictator Francisco Franco.

Topless Femen activists disrupt rally of Franco fans in Madrid
Police officers subdue a member of feminist movement Femen as she protests against a demonstration marking the anniversary of the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in Madrid. Photo: AFP

Police said nearly 200 Franco supporters had gathered in the Plaza de Oriente where he addressed the throngs during his 1939-75 military dictatorship.

Many bore flags, umbrellas and ties with the colours of the Franco-era Falangist party.

Three women interrupted the rally, their torsos daubed with the words “legal fascism” and “national shame”, before being arrested by police.

Some in the crowd reacted angrily, trying to assault the women.

The pro-Franco event came as the socialist government of Pedro Sanchez draws up plans to exhume the dictator's body from the Valley of the Fallen basilica just outside Madrid.

The family of the late dictator, who died on November 20th, 1975, wants his
remains placed in the family crypt at Madrid's La Almudena Cathedral.

Sanchez wants to move the former dictator's remains to a more discreet spot where it will be harder for Franco followers to pay homage.

Pro-Franco demonstrator Dori Grande told AFP that people from both sides of Spain's civil war were buried at the Valley of the Fallen site, which was created ostensibly to reunify the country.

“This year more than ever, we have to defend our homeland, our history, because history is there. You cannot erase it,” he added.

The remains of some 37,000 victims of the civil war, both republican and nationalists, are buried at the Valley of the Fallen basilica.

But many of the families of the dead were not notified and the site itself was partly built by republican prisoners, some of whom died in the process.

READ ALSO: Spanish parliament approves exhumation of General Franco