GERMANY: The German animal rights organisation Peta "crucified" a man wearing a pig's head outside Berlin's most famous church yesterday under the banner "Meat is murder".
The Lutheran pastor of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church in Berlin was not amused by the event, calling it a "abuse of religious symbols" and an insult to Christians during Holy Week.
But Jürgen Faulmann, a spokesman for Peta, said: "If Jesus were alive today he would certainly be a vegetarian and activist for human and animal rights."
The organisation said in a statement that raising animals for food went against the Fifth Commandment. "It says, 'thou shalt not kill' and not 'thou shalt not kill humans'."
Benjamin Schmidt, a Berlin artist who donned a crown of barbed wire to play Jesus for an hour yesterday, said: "Consumers should be jolted awake as a result of this event not to ignore the animal torture, the blood and the terrible killing that are an intrinsic part of their cleanly packaged schnitzel."
Meanwhile an Austrian cartoonist is facing a two-year jail sentence in Greece for depicting Jesus as a drugged-up pal of Jimi Hendrix.
Gerhard Haderer is known to millions for his clever cartoons in Stern, the German weekly magazine, and for The Life of Jesus, a satirical book published in seven European countries, including Greece.
Greek authorities seized and banned the book two years ago but when Haderer received notification that he was facing charges of blasphemy there, he didn't take it seriously.
He didn't show up in court last January but still received a six-month sentence and a €1,600 fine in absentia. His appeal will be heard in two weeks. If he loses, he could have the dubious honour of being the first artist to be held under the new European arrest warrant, allowing for his detention in any EU country.
More than 1,000 Austrian artists, including Austria's Nobel prizewinner Elfriede Jelinek, have signed a petition demanding the Austrian government intervene.
"The Austrian government has to answer one question: solidarity with Jesus or with Haderer," said Robert Menasse, author and initiator of the campaign.
Austrian comedian Hubsi Kramar, soon to star in a satirical play about Jesus, said: "Greece is in Europe and the whole idea of the European Union is that everything is supposed to be more open. But what happened to Haderer is scaring artists like me."