Controversial Tunisia activist goes missing

TUNIS: A Tunisian activist who sparked controversy by posting controversial pictures of herself online in support of Arab women’s rights has left her parents’ home and her whereabouts is unknown, her mother said yesterday.
“My daughter left the house on Friday and we don’t know where she is,” the mother of the young woman, who goes by the name of Amina Tyler, told AFP.
“I fear for my daughter, who has been receiving psychiatric treatment for six years,” added Tyler’s mother, who refused to be identified. She said she had consulted Tyler’s doctor and planned to report her disappearance to the Interior Ministry yesterday, while denying suggestions by women’s rights groups that the activist had been kidnapped by her own family.
“Some groups are exploiting my daughter’s story at her expense,” the mother said, her voice choking with emotion.
“There has never been any kidnapping. We are just trying to protect our daughter by refusing to let her go out on her own for the sake of her security,” she said.
The Tunisian activist provoked the ire of people when she posted highly controversial pictures of herself online last month.
After posting the pictures, Tyler told French television that she feared for her life and wanted to leave Tunisia, adding that a member of her family had beaten her and that she was forced to stay at home, in a town outside Tunis.
She risks six months in prison for breaching the peace.