Spanish Court Acquits City Councilor of Infringing on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Convictions
Rita Maestre had been fined for removing her top inside a chapel during a protest against the "antidemocratic and chauvinistic" positions of the Catholic Church in 2011. On appeal, that decision was reversed as the court found that "inadequate clothing or certain inappropriate gestures" were "disrespectful but not desecration."
In the 2011 protest, a group of 50 people burst into the chapel at Complutense University in Madrid and yelled anti-Vatican and women's rights slogans, including "Let's burn the Episcopal Conference". Maestre, now a city councillor with the Podemos party, took off her T-shirt, showing her bra. Some of the female protesters went completely topless. The protest frightened people praying in the chapel.
The protest sparked an outcry in Spain and in March 2016, a court found Maestre guilty of "infringing on freedom of conscience and religious convictions."
As of December 16, 2016, almost 35,000 signature have been gathered by MasLibres.org to protest the court's decision.
From the spokesman of MasLibres.org: "the acquittal tells believers that they have no rights. If entering a church violently with offensive graffiti written on bare chests, yelling insults, and shouting threats alluding to the religious genocide of 1936 is not profanation, we Christians become second-class citizens, legally unprotected against aggression and hateful anti-religious sentiments manifested by some social groups and political parties."
Source: Abogados Cristianos, Actuall, and BBC
Link to the Appellate Court decision here and the MasLibres.org petition here.