Argentine women go topless against topless ban action by police in South Atlantic beach

Buenos Aires, Feb8: Scores of women took to the streets in Argentina in a bare-breasted demonstration of solidarity with women recently confronted by police for going topless on a South Atlantic beach.Three women in bikini bottoms were ordered by 20 police officers to put on their tops or head out. Many in Argentina, once one of the world’s wealthiest countries, were stunned.

The demonstrations in Buenos Aires, in Mar del Plata and Rosario, were prompted by an incident two weeks ago in Necochea, 500 kilometers south of the capital.

Dozens of topless women, joined by hundreds of fully clothed protesters, demonstrated in Buenos Aires on Tuesday to demand the right to sunbathe semi-nude after police asked bare-breasted women to leave a nearby beach.

Smaller protests have occurred throughout the country in recent weeks in response to the January incident and it remains unclear if Argentine law allows women to go topless on public beaches.

Police cited a national criminal code article prohibiting “obscene displays” to justify asking the women to leave the beach, although at least one judge ruled after the incident that going topless was not a crime.

Arguing that women should have the same right as men to sunbathe topless, the women chanted, painted slogans on their bodies and held signs reading: “The only breasts that bother them are the ones that aren’t for sale.”

The demonstration in downtown Buenos Aires followed the “Not One Less” protests late last year in which tens of thousands of Argentines protested gender-related violence after the rape and killing of a 16-year-old girl.

The women have found one major supporter in the form of the Mayor of Necochea, Facundo Lopez. He said telling the trio to cover up was ‘a violation’ but ‘what happened afterwards could not be justified’ as it was not worthy of a row.

‘The law is obsolete, I am ready to modernise it. Just look at the comments in the networks to note that there is still a long way to go to eliminate machismo in Argentina.’

Websites have been set up so other women can register their objections and marches are to be held on February 7th and 11th.

One of the protests is being planned for the famous obelisk of Buenos Aires under the motto ‘Our breasts should not be censored!’