Woman artist gets death threats over gay Muslim photos (Sunday Times)

[struggle4progress]

From The Sunday Times
January 6, 2008
Matthew Campbell

... Speaking on the telephone from an unspecified location in the Netherlands last week, the artist, an Iranian exile who goes by the pseudonym of Sooreh Hera, said she had been threatened with “execution”. She accused the director of the municipal museum in The Hague of cowardice for caving in to Muslim extremists ...

“They condemn homosexuality but in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia it is common for married men to maintain relations with other men,” said Hera. “Works of art can be provocative. It is not an artist’s job just to paint flowers. Art should shine a light on social issues.” ...

“The museum director was very afraid,” said Hera. “He gave in to pressure from the Islamists. It is censorship.” In protest, she withdrew the rest of her photographs from the exhibition and Ranti Tjan, director of a museum in Gouda, agreed to put them on show. He received threats from extremists and was under police protection last week. Hera declined to discuss her own security arrangements ...

For her part, Hera, who fled Iran seven years ago, says she has “no regrets”, particularly when she thinks about the young men and women being hanged there for offending the country’s code of sexuality. “I do it for them,” she said, “for the boys and girls with no freedom in Iran.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3137510.ece

[msongs]

1. ain't religion wonderful? nt

[struggle4progress]

3. My own inclination is to regard "religion" as an ill-defined term, covering

a range of distinct social phenomena, and to consider such death threats as psychological symptoms indicating something about the personality, socialization, and cultural anxieties of the person who makes the threats

[LaStrega]

2. too true

“Works of art can be provocative. It is not an artist’s job just to paint flowers. Art should shine a light on social issues.” ...

kpete comes to mind

[UndertheOcean]

4. kick and R for a brave artist