Sila Sahin, a 25-year-old Turkish German living in Berlin, had until now been regarded as a glowing example of how a modern Muslim girl should behave in a multicultural society.
A successful actress starring in German television soap opera Good Times, Bad Times, she pleased her many fans and made her Turkish family proud.
But her latest move has shocked some of those fans, and enraged those closest to her.
Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.
‘I did it because I wanted to be free at last,’ she said. ‘These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood.’
Her family have, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.
‘My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,’ she said on the website devoted to her television soap.
She has, however, managed to talk to her actor father, who expressed concern over the pressure she will inevitably face from those not only within the Turkish community in Germany, but from the wider Muslim community as a whole.
Ms Sahin’s declared intention was to used the controversial Playboy photoshoot as a call to action for other Turkish girls who suffer the effects of their strict backgrounds, where women’s choices are often limited, husbands are chosen for the girls and chastity closely controlled.
Her message to these girls? ‘For too long I tried to do everything right,’ she says. ‘I want these photos to show young Turkish women it’s okay for you to live however you choose.’
‘Many of my countrymen think it’s great that I can be so free. With the shoot I hoped to say to them that we do not necessarily have to live under these rules given to us.
Free from sharia and the rules that enslave to Islam? More images of Sila’s freedom here.
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