Statement by artists and human rights activists in connection with the trial of the organizers of the exhibition “Beware of Religion!” • Sova • RIMA

Statement by artists and human rights activists in connection with the trial of the organizers of the exhibition “Beware of Religion!”

On March 15, a meeting of artists and representatives of public organizations was held in Moscow in connection with the trial of the exhibition “Beware of Religion!”

Among the almost 80 people present were the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseeva, lawyer Yuri Shmidt, artistic director of the State Center for Contemporary Art Leonid Bazhanov, priest Gleb Yakunin, artists Vera Sazhina, German Vinogradov, poetess Elena Katsyuba, member of the Anti-War Committee Mikhail Kriger and others.

The statement adopted as a result of the meeting said: “Criminal prosecution against those who have merely provided artists expressing their view of the world with the opportunity to exhibit their work cannot be viewed as anything other than a manifestation of intolerance of dissent and extreme obscurantism.” Participants in the meeting expressed indignation at the prosecutor’s office’s demand to deprive Yu. Samodurov and the museum employees of their liberty, as well as the demand to destroy the exhibition exhibits.

“We see how, through this process, the church uses the repressive apparatus of the state to assert its power, to revive ideological censorship - this time clerical,” the statement further said. The meeting participants believe that “if a guilty verdict is passed, this will mean the beginning of an era of persecution for beliefs, the beginning of the persecution of art. This will throw our society back many years - into totalitarianism.”

At the same meeting, a statement by prisoners of Stalin’s camps regarding the exhibition was read out.

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