Legal Commentary

Russian Art Curators Convicted for Blasphemy, Fined

By Eugene Volokh

For more on the case, see this post from a few days ago. The conviction was for ?committing acts aimed at inciting national hatred and strife,? but, as I argue in that post, this provision has essentially been interpreted as a ban on use of religious images that sufficiently offends believers, which is why I treat this as a blasphemy prosecution. For the details on the sentence ? fines of several thousand dollars ? see this BBC item; for a Kafkaesque twist, see this Moscow News story.

Thanks to Prof. Howard Friedman (Religion Clause) for the pointer.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on July 12, 2010 (boomark / email).