mediawatchwatch.org.uk

According to the Moscow Times group of Russian Orthodox believers has forced Coca-Cola to withdraw a series of ads which they considered “blasphemous”.

The sugary drink giant placed pictures of religious sites together with its logo on fridges in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s third-biggest city. In some of the pictures the sites were upside down, including the cross.

Mikhail Prokopenko, spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, said

Large corporations have to take into account the local context, particularly the Christian context. [Coca-Cola] didn’t recognize the boundaries.

He had originally thought that the company ought to be prosecuted for “inciting religious hatred”, but backed down when Coca-Cola proved responsive to Orthodox concerns.