Brazilian model Caroline Werner blasts country’s legal system following arrest for being topless while walking her dogs

A Brazilian model put her country’s legal system on blast after she was arrested earlier this year for public indecency while walking her dogs topless, according to a report.

Caroline Werner, 37, was put in handcuffs in May after police stopped her for being outside bare-breasted while walking across the street from the beach in Balneário Camboriú, a coastal city in the south of Brazil.

Now Werner is criticizing whether Brazil’s constitution extends the same liberties to women as men — who are free to be shirtless in public, according to Brazilian outlet G1.

“Unfortunately in my country, even though the Constitution ensures gender equality, in practice this does not happen, I cannot have the same freedom and I feel coerced into doing so by this system and the repressive interpretation of the law,” she told the outlet. “What should be natural for both genders ends up being denied to one of them in an arbitrary and repressive manner.”

Werner said she decided to take her top off while walking her dogs home from a day at the beach and was approached by several officers, who arrested her, loaded her into a van and took her to a police station where she was given a blouse to cover herself.

She claims the police violated her due process rights by not allowing her to place a phone call to her family or a lawyer.

“When I arrived at the police station, they took me to a dark cell, where I was handcuffed to the cell railing, without the right to communicate with any family member, friend or lawyer,” she said. “I spent more than an hour in that situation, unable to speak to anyone and — even though I had asked for — I was denied my right to speak to my lawyer several times.”

Werner, a businesswoman who also has her own bikini line, said that she’s traveled all over the world and has not had any issues being topless — but was appalled she was detained in the South American country.

“In many countries, it is a completely normal practice,” she said. “A woman’s body is not objectified and hypersexualized.”

Werner received a summons for committing an obscene act and was released.

Article 233 of the Penal Code in Brazil describes the charge as “performing an obscene act in a public place, either open or exposed to the public,” however the law does not define what an “obscene act” is, according to G1.

She could face anywhere from three months to a year in prison if found guilty.

The Santa Catarina state prosecutor’s office is handling the case and has offered her a plea deal but Werner, who has since moved from Balneário Camboriú,  said she did not attend the hearing. Her attorney said she was not notified of the hearing and is requesting a new date.

Werner said that the whole incident is being overblown online, where videos of her strolling topless made the round.

“What happened to me, the abuse of authority and judgment by society, demonstrates how the interpretation of the law itself reflects gender conduct dictated by patriarchal, violent culture, in relation to the control of female bodies,” she said.