The ECHR communicated the complaints of the organizers of the exhibition “Forbidden Art” and the author of the painting with Mickey Mouse instead of Christ

The court in Strasbourg is asking the Russian authorities whether the national courts violated the right of Andrei Yerofeyev, Yuri Samodurov and Alexander Savko to freedom of expression.

On October 19, 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) communicated the complaint of the organizers of the exhibition “Forbidden Art – 2006” Andrei Erofeev and Yuri Samodurov, found guilty of inciting religious hatred, against their sentence, and the complaint of Alexander Savko, whose painting participated in this exhibition, and then was recognized as extremist material - his work was banned.

Let us recall that on July 12, 2010, Erofeev and Samodurov were found guilty by the Tagansky Court of Moscow under paragraph “b” of Part 2 of Art. 282 (inciting hatred using official position) and were sentenced to fines of 200 and 150 thousand rubles, respectively; On October 4, 2010, the Moscow City Court approved this verdict. The organizers of the exhibition “Forbidden Art - 2006” at the Sakharov Center were accused of inciting religious hatred due to the fact that the exhibition presented works by contemporary artists on religious themes, the authors of which, according to Orthodox activists, treated religious symbols too freely. The court decision said that the exhibition offended the feelings of believers, and even those of the believers who did not see it - and the exhibits of the exhibition were hidden from the view of spectators by a wall and were available for fragmentary viewing through small holes in it - "were subjected to psycho-traumatic effects " and "suffered moral suffering." Earlier, in 2005, a similar sentence was handed down to Samodurov and his employee Lyudmila Vasilovskaya for organizing the exhibition “Beware of Religion!”

Alexander Savko's painting "The Sermon on the Mount" from the series "Mickey Mouse's Journey through the History of Art" (and its image posted on the Internet) is a collage based on an engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld with a scene of the Sermon on the Mount; the figure of Christ in the painting is replaced by Mickey Mouse. It was first recognized as extremist material on August 18, 2011 by the Zhukovsky District Court of the Kaluga Region. Then this decision was canceled on formal grounds, but on December 20, 2011it was made again by the same court. On February 14, 2012, the Kaluga Regional Court approved the ban.

The ECHR raised the question with the Russian authorities about whether the decisions of the courts concerning the case of Erofeev and Samodurov and the ban on Savko’s painting were violated, Art. 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression. Let us remind you that we consider these decisions to be unlawful.

Sources

• Applications no. 22081/11 and 59476/12 //
• Yuriy Vadimovich SAMODUROV and Andrey Vladimirovich YEROFEYEV against Russia and Aleksandr Andreyevich SAVKO against Russia // ECHR. 2017. November.