Venezuelan students are protesting against the government and police brutality via a new form of dissent: sharing naked photos of themselves on social media.
Thousands of Venezuelans protested online after a student was beaten up and stripped naked by government supporters on Thursday (pictured above), during clashes at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas, according the local newspaper El Nacional.
The original idea appears to have come from Ricardo Cie, vice-president of a Venezuelan marketing firm, according to BBC Mundo.
He was the first to tweet a photo in support of the beaten student:
Ojalá que a ti que intentaron humillarte quitándote la ropa, te llegue esta iniciativa. #DesnudosConLaUCV #ConcluUCV pic.twitter.com/J07EjgknEK— Ricardo Cie (@panamayor) April 5, 2014
Cie convinced 16 other people to take similar photos, and suggested using the hashtag #ConcluUCV seen on CNN Thursday night, the BBC reported. The participants shared it along with their respective images. Soon after, the campaign quickly gained steam online, including other related hashtags, amassing thousands of tweets in just five days.
#MejorDesnudosQue (Better Naked Than) has been tweeted more than 180,000 times, #DesnudosConLaUCV (Naked with the Central University of Venezuela) has been used more than 113,000 times and #MejorDesnudosQueSinLibertad (Better Naked Than Without Liberty) has been posted almost 3,000 times. (All statistics are according to Topsy.)
Geraldine Siso tweeted: "Better naked than without Venezuela."
Mejor desnuda que sin Venezuela (Valga el aporte) #DesnudosConlaUCV #MejorDesnudosQue pic.twitter.com/zyW6booTUH— Geraldine Siso (@geralsisom) April 6, 2014
The following Twitter user wrote: "I'm a mother of students, I send my support to everyone, long live the courageous students, heroes."
#MejorDesnudosQueSinLibertad soy madre de estudiante mi apoyo para todos, vivan los estudiantes valientes, heroes pic.twitter.com/ytXDf3gale— eleis j (@eleisa_jp) April 5, 2014
Eliana Mora tweeted: "Better naked than with no right to free speech."
#MejorDesnudoQue sin derecho a expresarme #DesnudosConLaUCV @fdelrinconCNN @CNNEE #SOSVzla pic.twitter.com/5olMxlJcIm— Eliana Mora (@Eliale7) April 5, 2014
Some students in Merida, Venezuela took the protests to the real world, marching naked through the streets, according to online news site La Patilla.
#Mérida #8A #DesnudosConLaUCV #ULADesnudosConLaUCV #CuandoElRégimenTeDesnuda #GochoArrecho @DolarToday @la_patilla pic.twitter.com/GBgttKehUS— Rodolfo Mejías (@elchesther) April 8, 2014