Hmmm. If Christians wrote "Down with pagan superstitions of antiquity"
on indiginous religious meeting places, would attempts to stop that be
persecution of Christians? Using the above logic it would certainly seem
so.
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Peshewegunzh
peshe%mamia.UUCP@mthvax.cs.miami.edu
mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia.UUCP!peshe
peshe@mamia.UUCP
mthvax!mamia!peshe
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[ It would appear that the issue here is one of whether graffiti which
damages the property of another is a "protected form of free expres-
sion." At least that would be the crux of the matter under United
States law. I believe this is essentially the debate we had once
before in the context of defacing statues of Columbus in order to
make a point about what "the man and his mission" represent. If the
only matter at stake is one of law (to the extent that Panamanian law
is like U.S. law, and it can be expected to be similar for obvious
reasons), we need only consider the property rights of the owner of
the building/statue. However, the nature of the act of protest is
a bit different in the two cases, since one could argue in this case
that the existence of the cathedral and the system of thought and
policy it represents are the real affront - to the people and way of
life it has forever altered, whereas the example Peshewegunzh hypo-
thesises would be yet another act of cultural aggression by the side
with superior force. I am not espousing this view, but only trying
to imagine how the IPC might reason and defend their cause. --Gary ]