PLOCK, Poland (AP) – Three human rights activists were tried in Poland on Wednesday for allegedly desecrating and insulting religious sentiment by adding the rainbow symbol of the LGBT rights movement to posters of a revered Roman Catholic icon and public display of the altered image, including on garbage bins and mobile toilets.
Activists said they created posters that used rainbows to replace halos in the icon of the Black Madonna and baby Jesus to protest what they saw as the hostility of the Catholic Church in Poland to LGBT people.
One of the defendants, Elzbieta Podlesna, told the court on Wednesday that their 2019 action in Plock was stimulated by an installation at St. Dominic’s Church in the city that associated LGBT people with crimes and negative behaviors.
The three do not deny putting the posters on the walls and elsewhere around the church, but do not admit to putting stickers with the image on the trash cans and toilets. They deny wrongdoing.
Polish media have identified the other defendants as Anna Prus and Joanna Gzyra-Iskandar.
Activists could face up to two years in prison if convicted of offending religious sentiment and desecrating Poland’s most revered icon, Our Lady of Czestochowa, popularly known as the Black Madonna of Czestochowa.
The original icon has been housed in the Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa since the 14th century.
A group of supporters with rainbow flags and banners that read “Rainbow does not offend” gathered in front of the court. A verdict was not expected on Wednesday.
Podlesna was arrested in a morning police raid on her apartment in 2019. She was detained for several hours and questioned about the icon’s posters that were placed around Plock. Subsequently, a court ruled that detention was unnecessary and ordered him to pay damages of approximately $ 2,000.
The case highlighted the clash over social problems in predominantly Catholic Poland. The country’s right-wing government supports laws against insulting religious beliefs and symbols. LGBT rights advocates say the laws are being used to stifle human rights and freedom of expression.