A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 7 Number 10 - Tuesday, March 8th, 2005 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian Laity
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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DOW JONES NEWSWIRES MOSCOW (AP)--Prosecutors asked a court Wednesday to sentence a rights activist to three years of internal exile if convicted on charges of inciting religious hatred by organizing a controversial religious exhibit, Russian news agencies reported. Yuri Samodurov, the head of the Sakharov Museum, which is also a leading human rights group, is on trial for organizing a 2003 art exhibit prosecutors claim inspired religious hatred. Prosecutors also requested two-year sentences for two others charged in the case - museum worker Lyudmila Vasilovskaya and artist Anna Mikhalchuk, who contributed to the exhibit, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. Mikhalchuk shouldn't have to serve time, though, since the statute of limitations on her alleged crime had expired, the prosecutors said, without elaborating. Titled "Caution, Religion," the exhibit at the Moscow museum included a Russian Orthodox-style icon with a hole instead of a head where visitors could insert their faces. Another work featured a Coca-Cola logo with Jesus' face drawn next to it and the words: "This is my blood." All three defendants have pleaded innocent, saying they didn't understand how specific works at the exhibition were inciting religious hatred. It was unclear when the judge would make his ruling. Members of the Russian Orthodox Church called the exhibit blasphemous and insulting, and urged officials to press charges. The exhibit was vandalized four days after its opening, and six attackers were detained and charged with hooliganism. Those charges were dropped after a publicity campaign conducted by a Russian Orthodox priest. The trial has been watched closely by atheists and religious minorities, who claim that Russia's dominant Orthodox Church has ties that are too close with the state, and that religious symbolism has become as omnipresent and oppressive as atheism was in Soviet times.
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