In 2005, two art museum directors appealed to the European Court of Human Rights after they were prosecuted when vandals smashed up one of their exhibits.
Protesters broke in and smashed part of the Beware! Religion exhibition at the Sakharov Museum in Russia.
Museum director Yuri Samodurov and his deputy Lyudmila Vasilovskaya had hoped the vandals would be prosecuted.
But instead the culprits were let off after a court ruled they had been "justifiably provoked" by the controversial exhibition.
Samodurov and Vasilovskaya were later each fined 2,000 pounds for displaying art that compares the blood of Jesus with Coca-Cola.
They were charged by the public prosecutor's office with "incitement to religious and ethnic hatred" following a special parliamentary resolution.
Defence lawyer Yuri Schmidt said the sentence was a blow to democratic developments in Russia and pointed out that the charges contained religious phrases such as "blasphemous exhibition".
Controversial exhibits included a Coca-Cola logo with Christ's face and the words "This is my blood" on it, and a sculpture of a church made from vodka bottles.
Sources
ananova, July 2005
