Russians fined in blasphemy case

[emad]

BBC


A Moscow court has found the organisers of an art exhibition guilty of inciting religious hatred and fined them 100,000 roubles (£2,000; $3,600) each.

The January 2003 exhibition called "Caution! Religion" was staged by the Sakharov Museum, named after the Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov.

The Russian Orthodox Church had condemned director Yuri Samodurov and his colleague Lyudmila Vasilovskaya.

The court ruling said the show was "openly insulting and blasphemous".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4387833.stm

NO-ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition....

[megatherium]

1. We should be grateful to live in a country

where we are free to trash religion if we wish to. At least in Russia, slagging the church only gets you a fine. Certain of our alleged allies (e.g. Pakistan) execute blasphemers.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Try trashing religion in the public square here

And see how free you really are to do so. We don't need laws against trashing religion as long as we have mob rule by the religious.

[RedCloud]

3. Where's the Red Army when you need it?

Indeed, the opiate of the masses has gone completely ape-dodo this time.

We should be ashamed to live in an empire (has been for at least 100 years) where religion is allowed to interfere in the state. where is the Continental Army when you need it?

[knitter4democracy]

4. I'll bet it was the icon one and the Coke one that did it.

We consider icons to be windows to Heaven, and that one's a bit icky to an Orthodox Christian. Making fun of Christ's blood (although I think the artist had a different idea in mind that the Church would actually agree with if it thought about it) is always bad.

Russia has a long history of Church and State being together, if not one, and there have been many signs that they're heading back in that direction. That's sad, actually. Our faith can withstand any attack, especially one through art, and we don't need some secular court to back us up.