Angry Christians Force Slayer Album Out Of India

Taken from Washington Post, Tue Oct 10, 2006

MUMBAI (Reuters) - U.S. heavy metal band Slayer's latest album has been recalled from music stores across India after the country's small Christian community said the cover depicting Christ with amputated arms and a missing eye was insulting.

Christian groups said the album -- "Christ Illusion" -- did not only have an offensive image on its cover, but some of the songs such as "Skeleton Christ" and "Jihad" hurt the sensibilities of Christians and Muslims alike.

"We took strong exception to the album which is offensive and in very bad taste," said Joseph Dias of Mumbai's Catholic Secular Forum.

The protests prompted EMI Music, Slayer's Indian-based label, to pull the album from all music stores and its depots.

"Last week we recalled all the albums and destroyed them as we did not want any community to be hurt," said T. Suresh, the company general manager.

In May, Christians, who make up about two per cent of Hindu-majority India's one-billion plus population, protested against the screening of "The Da Vinci Code", and forced its producers, Sony Pictures, to add a disclaimer saying the movie was a work of fiction.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Well done to the people of India for standing up to their rights. Like I said in previous articles, freedom of speech doesn't give people to the right produce materials/ make statements that will offend people of religion (whatever thier faith).

This article had received very little attention in western media (and quite rightly so) but had this been just Muslims protesting against the band i'm sure there would've been greater coverage!