PLOCK, Poland (AP) – Three human rights activists were tried in Poland on Wednesday for alleged desecration and insult to religious sentiment by adding the rainbow symbol of the LGBT rights movement to posters of a respected Roman Catholic icon and publicly displaying the altered image, also on waste bins and portable toilets.
The activists have said they created posters that used rainbows to replace the halos in the icon of the Black Madonna and baby Jesus to protest what they saw as Poland’s influential Catholic Church’s hostility to LGBT people.
One of the defendants, Elzbieta Podlesna, said in court on Wednesday that their action in Plock in 2019 was spurred by an installation at the city’s St. Dominic’s Church that linked LGBT people to crime and negative behavior.
The three do not deny that they have put the posters on walls and elsewhere in the church, but do not admit that they have put stickers with the image on trash cans and toilets. They deny wrongdoing.
Polish media identified the other defendants as Anna Prus and Joanna Gzyra-Iskandar.
The activists could face up to two years in prison if convicted of insulting religious sentiments and desecration of Poland’s most revered icon, the Mother of God of Czestochowa, popularly known as the Black Madonna of Czestochowa.
The original icon has been housed in the Jasna Gora Monastery in the city of Czestochowa since the 14th century.
A group of supporters with rainbow flags and banners saying “The Rainbow Gives No Offense” gathered outside the court. A verdict was not expected on Wednesday.
Podlesna was arrested during an early morning police raid on her apartment in 2019. She was detained for several hours and interrogated about the icon’s posters that were hung around Plock. A court later said the detention was unnecessary and ordered her in damages of approximately $ 2,000.
The case has brought to light the clash over social issues in predominantly Catholic Poland. The country’s right-wing government supports laws against offending religious beliefs and symbols. LGBT rights advocates say the laws are used to stifle human rights and freedom of expression.