Shortly after the showcase opened in June, prosecutors ordered the police to confiscate the pictures, which depicted female intimate parts adorned with a rosary, the Polish national flag, images of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Pope John Paul II, former Polish presidents Lech Kaczyński and Bronisław Komorowski, as well as symbols of the 2010 Smolensk air disaster, state news agency PAP reported.
It quoted a local activist who alerted the authorities as saying that she had felt “offended - as a woman, as a patriot and as a Catholic” by “these gross images of vaginas, combined with religious and national symbols.”
The show was part of a wider event whose organisers said they did not interfere with the artistic content of the exhibition, the news agency reported.
The photographer behind the controversial pictures, a 51-year-old man identified only as Marcel Z., has said he did not intend to cause any offence, but merely alluded to Poland’s first-ever exhibition of nude photography, staged in 1970, according to the news agency.
The Regional Prosecutor's Office in Łódź on Tuesday announced that the photographer "has been charged with causing religious offence to six persons by publicly abusing religious objects and publicly abusing the flag of the Republic of Poland."
The suspect, who has denied the charges, faces up to two years in prison, prosecutors also said, as quoted by PAP.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP