The organizers of the controversial Forbidden Art-2006 exhibition in Moscow will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to complain about a court verdict which found them guilty of inciting national and religious hatred, a defense lawyer said.
"As good defense we should appeal to the European Court of Human Rights where we will raise issues of the violation of freedom of speech, enshrined in the Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights," Kseniya Kostromina said.
The defense also filed on Tuesday a brief appeal against the verdict.
The Forbidden Art 2006 exhibition, held at Moscow's Andrei Sakharov Community Center, displayed artwork that had been barred from Moscow's mainstream museums and galleries. Many of the exhibits featured blasphemous images of Jesus Christ. In one, he had a Mickey Mouse head and in another his head had been replaced by an Order of Lenin medal.
An inquiry was launched into the controversial exhibition in 2007 after a Christian organization accused the show's curators of defacing religious symbols and fueling national hatred.
Sakharov Center Director Yury Samodurov was fined 200,000 rubles (about $6,000) and the ex-head of the Tretyakov Gallery's New Trends Department, Andrei Yerofeyev, was fined 150,000 rubles ($5,000).
The Russian arts community was outraged by the hearing and the Voyna (War) art group even released thousands of cockroaches into the courtroom. Samodurov criticized the act, calling it a "violation of the law."
Samodurov and Yerofeyev said their relatives, lawyers and members of the arts community would help them pay the fines.
MOSCOW, July 13 (RIA Novosti)
