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Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | Back issues
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Cheeky Condom Packaging Protected by European Rights Convention

Europe’s human rights court said Georgian contraceptive company Aiisa was wrongfully fined over packaging that featured religious and historical references.

STRASBOURG, France (CN) — Georgian authorities were wrong to fine a condom company for putting religious and historical jokes on its packaging, according to Europe’s top rights court. 

The European Court of Human Rights found Thursday that the 500 lari ($200) fine against the company's owner Anania Gachechiladze in 2018 violated her right to expression under the 1953 European Convention on Human Rights, which established the Strasbourg-based court.

Gachechiladze’s company, Aiisa – Georgian for "that thing" – began producing prophylactics in 2017 featuring religious and historical references. Georgian medieval monarch Queen Tamar was featured on one, with a sexual double entendre. Another had a hand gesture representing the sign of the cross, with two fingers inserted in a condom. The condoms were sold online and in vending machines. 

A conservative action group, the Georgian Idea, brought a formal complaint over four of the condom packages, arguing they were blasphemous and insulting.

A court in the capital city of Tbilisi agreed, finding Gachechiladze guilty of unethical advertising and forbidding her from using the imagery on her packaging or social media. The 10,000 condoms manufactured with the banned images had already completely sold out before the trial concluded. 

Even the Georgian Orthodox Church got involved, issuing a statement in 2018 calling the packaging “blasphemous” and Gachechiladze “immoral.” Aiisa responded with a statement of its own, thanking the church for its interest and for choosing the company as its preferred condom brand. More than 80% of the Georgian population identifies as Eastern Orthodox Christian.

The 26-year-old entrepreneur appealed the verdict but her conviction was upheld by a Georgia appeals court.

After exhausting all her national legal options, Gachechiladze filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, which was created nearly 70 years ago by the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Strasbourg court sided with Gachechiladze on Thursday, finding the Georgian authorities violated her right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the convention in regards to three of the four images in question.

“Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society and one of the basic conditions for its progress and for each individual’s self-fulfillment,” the ruling states.

The seven-judge panel agreed with the Georgian authorities regarding the depiction of Queen Tamar,

“The design could be seen as a gratuitous insult to the object of veneration for Georgians following the Orthodox Christian faith,” the court found.

But for the other three images, the judges concluded that “that none of the reasons given by the domestic courts were relevant to justify necessity and proportionality of the interference with the applicant’s freedom of expression.”

Gachechiladze did not request any damages and did not respond to a request for comment. 

Follow Molly Quell on Twitter

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Categories / Business, Civil Rights, Government, International

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