Crowd stone artist for picture of Christ with transvestites

ANGRY SWEDES protesting against a photography exhibition which depicts Christ in the company of homosexuals and transvestites threw rocks at the photographer when she stepped outside the exhibition hall.

The "Ecce Homo" exhibition, Latin for Behold the Man, has provoked protests since it was first shown in the capital, Stockholm, last summer, and at Uppsala cathedral, the seat of the country's Lutheran archbishop. The disturbances at the weekend occurred at a museum in Norrkoeping, 75 miles south-west of Stockholm. Several hundred demonstrators gathered outside the building and began to hurl stones when Elisabeth Ohlson, stepped outside.

"When they discovered it was me the tumult began," Ms Ohlson said. "I didn't think they would recognise me." She fled back into the museum, apparently unhurt. Later an unidentified person telephoned to warn that there was a bomb in the museum, although no bomb was found.

The photographs include one based on Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, in which Christ is shown sitting with disciples who look like transvestites.

The showing of the photographs resulted in the Pope cancelling a visit to Uppsala cathedral last year.