The story began in a street market in Gabon's capital Libreville
around two weeks ago, according to local media. A group of female market
vendors seem to have stripped naked, to protest against what they
called police "racketeering".
"Every day they ask us for money or
seize our merchandise, telling us that we are [illegally] obstructing a
public route," Le Nouveau Gabon newspaper quoted one vendor as saying.
Police
arrested some of the protesters. That might have been that, except that
a mobile phone video began circulating this week. It shows officers
bundling two of the women out of a truck into the courtyard of a police
station, handling them roughly as they protest. The women are still
naked.
One version has been viewed nearly 15,00
0 times on YouTube. Gabon has 1.5 million inhabitants.
It's
not clear who posted the video, but it seems to have been shot within a
police compound, and a woman can be heard laughing off-screen during
the filming.
"This is very sad for our country. Do these cops not
have mothers?" one viewer said in a comment online. "The person who is
laughing deserves a good beating," said another. The video has sparked
anger against the police and accusations on social media of police
brutality.
It is not the first time African women have protested
by stripping off. A group of elderly women in a village in northern
Uganda did the same earlier this year as part of a long-running conflict with the government over land rights.
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