“Caretaker” Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami thinks it’s more damaging to Lebanon’s reputation that one of our best athletes, Jackie Chamoun, participated in a photoshoot where she showed as much skin – less, actually – as what we find in every lingerie shop and in every night club rather than his own refusal to sign a law protecting women from domestic violence?
It was this very man who, two years ago, called the draft law written by activists designed to protect women from domestic violence a “blow to family values” because apparently his conception of family is the same as our conception of rape, torture and murder. Roula Yaacoub is fucking dead. Manal Assi is fucking dead. But a woman athlete showing some skin last year is what moves our minister to demand an “investigation”.
Jackie is Lebanon’s Alpine Skier for this year’s winter Olympics in Sochi. She also happens to be beautiful. And to be both attractive and talented is something that our political (and religious conservative) misogynists can’t really understand. As can be testified by the thousands of messages of support she’s gotten on her page in just a few hours, we are all with her and we support her.
Good luck Jackie.
Ps: Jackie wrote that the photos we see are part of the making of and were not supposed to be online. Wanting to respect her wishes, I have therefore not published them here. But as they have now gone viral, I just linked to the original Swiss website.
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