Friday, April 28, 2017

In Spain, 3 Women Face Trial On Charge of Insulting Religious Sentiments of Catholics

The Telegraph reports that in Spain, three women will be tried on charges of  insulting the religious sentiments of Catholics.  The charges grow out of the women's participation in a May Day parade in 2014 in which they carried a giant plastic vagina through the streets of Seville on a platform imitating the way in which women carry the image of the Virgin Mary in Good Friday parades.  Allegedly they also mocked Catholic prayers. The three women, part of a group calling itself "Sisterhood of the Blessed Rebellious Vagina to the Exploitation of Precariousness," were protesting discrimination against women in the workplace. An appeals court last week rejected the women's free speech defenses. While the women face the potential of fines and an 18 month prison sentence, any prison time is likely to be suspended.