A Russian court has laid charges against the director of an art gallery, accusing him of inciting hatred with an exhibition last year that satirised the Orthodox Church and the Russian Army. It is the latest twist in an ongoing battle between Yury Samodurov, the director of the Sakharov Museum in Moscow, and Orthodox groups and conservative politicians It has led to criticisms that freedom of expression in Russia is becoming further restricted."Forbidden Art" ran late last year at the Sakharov Museum and included several dozen works that had been barred from appearing at other exhibitions.Some of the works were simply lewd, others parodied religion, for example substituting an Order of Lenin medal for the head of Christ on the cross. One work showed a Russian general raping a soldier, with the phrase "Glory to Russia" as a caption. As a protest against creeping censorship, viewers had to peer through peepholes to see the art.The exhibition was attacked by Orthodox groups, who said it was a provocative gesture by artists seeking publicity who wanted to offend religious sensibilities. "It's difficult to call this art," said Father Alexander Volkov, a spokesperson for the Moscow Patriarchate. "It's nothing more than a provocation against a group of citizens, in this case Orthodox believers."Mr Samodurov said the charges were part of a long-running case that he expects to come to court in July. He also said that the Sakharov Museum will have to close in September if it does not find money to pay its employees. He denied that the show was meant as a provocation. "To those who say it is, I say, 'Oh, God, you know it isn't so!' "While there is a thriving contemporary art scene in Moscow, with new galleries springing up all the time and the most popular artists' works fetching thousands of dollars, there are still many no-go areas where artists risk personal and legal consequences for overstepping. In late 2006, masked attackers burst into the gallery of Marat Guelman, destroying paintings by a Georgian artist and beating up the gallery owner. Mr Guelman had been listed as an "enemy of Russia" on many right-wing websites because of his Jewish origins and backing for controversial art."Forbidden Art "was not the first time that Mr Samodurov has been in trouble. An exhibition at the Sakharov Museum in 2003 entitled "Caution, Religion!" displayed a model of a church made out of vodka bottles, and a picture of Christ against a Coca-Cola advertisement. It's the sort of thing that artists in the West have been doing for decades but in Russia it caused a storm. When a group of Orthodox radicals vandalised the exhibit days after its opening, it was not they who were convicted, but the exhibit's organisers, including Mr Samodurov, who were hit with a fine for inciting hatred.Now he faces up to five years in prison if convicted on the new charges. Yesterday, he had to sign a bail document saying he would not leave Moscow during the period before the trial.Ludmila Alekseyeva, the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, told Interfax that the charges were based on "unthinkable stupidity and shamefulness, and are also a violation of rights and freedoms". She promised to lobby Russian and international organisations to rally to Mr Samodurov's defence.But Father Volkov welcomed the court case. He admitted that he himself had not seen the exhibition, but said that the artist should pay for offending religious believers. "It's good that this has been carried to its conclusion, and it shows that the state has a respect for the Church and for the believers."