Posted on 01/27/2004 4:34:50 AM PST by veronica
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Following a row between Sweden and Israel over a controversial art exhibit, Prime Minister Goeran Persson's office has been bombarded with thousands of protest e-mails at the request of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a government official said Tuesday.
"This morning we had received 13,603 online protest letters," government registrar Ulla Hildert said in an telephone interview.
The flap threatened to overshadow the three-day international conference on preventing genocide in Stockholm, which ends Wednesday.
Israel downgraded its representation at the conference after a museum refused to remove the display showing a picture of an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber from an exhibit linked to the conference.
Ambassador Zvi Mazel tried on Jan. 16 to vandalize the installation, saying it glorified suicide bombers. Sweden said his actions were unacceptable. The artwork's Israeli-born artist strongly denied that it glorified suicide bombers or was anti-Semitic.
In its appeal, the Simon Wiesenthal Center - a Los Angeles-based, Jewish human rights group - said that the exhibition at the Stockholm Museum of Antiquities is a glorification of a "Palestinian homicide bomber" and that Sweden should take a lead to declare suicide bombings a "crime against humanity."
In the letter on its web site, posted last week, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Sweden has championed the exhibit under the rubric of artistic freedom even though, the center claims, it glorifies suicide bombings.
"But what is Sweden prepared to do for the real victims of terror? No nation has yet had the courage to officially come forward to declare suicide bombing 'a crime against humanity,"' the Center's site said.
At the end of the letter, readers are asked to "Click here to send your protest directly to Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson."
The artwork depicts a small ship carrying a picture of Islamic Jihad bomber Hanadi Jaradat sailing in a rectangular pool filled with red-colored water. Jaradat killed herself and 21 bystanders in an Oct. 4 suicide bombing in Haif.
Titled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth," the piece was meant to call attention to how weak, lonely people can be capable of horrible things, said Israeli-born artist Dror Feiler, its creator.
Israel demanded that the work be withdrawn, but Sweden's Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds said the government does not have the right to censure art in Sweden.
"The government can't influence the museum in its actions, but it's the museum itself that decides what will be shown or not," she said. "We have freedom of expression, and our departments and museums are independent."
Persson was to attend a Holocaust memorial service at the Stockholm synagogue Tuesday evening.
So-called "artist" and Che Guevera fan violates The Swedish Copyright Act.
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