Last Supper ruling overturned
Paris - France's highest court has overturned a ruling by a Paris court banning a fashion poster showing women imitating Jesus Christ and his apostles in the Leonardo da Vinci painting The Last Supper.
The Court of Appeals said the posters, for fashion house Marithe and Francois Girbaud, should be allowed under the right to freedom of speech.
The court found the campaign did not aim to offend the faithful and "does not constitute an injury and personal and direct attack against a group of people".
The company was forced to take down the posters last March after the Paris court said they offended Roman Catholics.
The Italian city of Milan also banned the same poster last year as a parody of a key event in Christian history. The Last Supper depicts Christ's farewell to his disciples.
The poster showed women in chic casual clothes seated at a table in postures mimicking da Vinci's famous painting, which he finished in 1497 in a Milan convent. To the right of Christ in the poster, a woman embraces a shirtless man in jeans.
The French complaint against the poster was brought by an association called Beliefs and Freedoms, which was created by the French bishops' conference in 1996.
The association's lawyer said the poster did "great injury to Catholics because it represents the Last Supper in denigrating conditions".
News source: www.news24.co.za
Posted by: www.SouthAfrica-CarHire.com
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