One thing is certain (cf. the Brooklyn museum that was exhibiting a portrait of the Virgin Mary pelted with dung a few years ago, and many other cases): if Christians had complained, the museum would have cried “censorship” and kept the exhibit up.
From Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A Swedish museum dedicated to world culture has removed an erotic painting plastered with verses from the Muslim holy book, the Koran, from an exhibition about AIDS after Muslims complained it was obscene.
Jette Sandahl, director of the World Culture Museum, which opened in Gothenburg a month ago, said on Wednesday that the painting by an Arab artist living in France was replaced by another less offensive one.
Sweden is home to 400,000 Muslims. The row over artist Louzla Darabi’s painting comes amid tensions in Europe about a perceived increase in Islamic militancy since a Dutch filmmaker critical of Islam was murdered in the Netherlands late last year.
Sandahl told Reuters that most of the hundreds of e-mails and letters sent were “respectful and polite but some were more aggressive.”
“It was the combination of the image and text from the Koran which was problematic,” she added.
Darabi told Gothenburg Channel 4 television that her work was not meant “offend anyone but to stress the link between love and God symbolised by the Koran’s text”.