A Spanish gaming programmer may face up to one year prison charges for developing a video-game which makes fun of religious practices. 'Matanza Cofrade' is a video-game, a first person shooter Doom-like game in which the player shoots participants to the famous Holy Week procession. The participants are zombies and in the background, images of several religious brotherhoods from Sevilla are shown.

This game was supposed to be offered as a present with a CD of the Spanish Rock band "Narco" in November 2002, but when the brotherhoods heard about it, they started a lawsuit against it. In the end, the game was removed from the CD.

In a legal movement that it is becoming a classic when facing issues of freedom of expression, the programmer has been accused by the attorney of both offending religious feelings and of misuse of intellectual property, since the programmer didn't have permission to use images from the brotherhoods.

The court will hear the case on 29 September. The public prosecutor asks for one year in prison for the intellectual property charge and ten months for offending religious feelings.

(Contribution by David Casacuberta, EDRI-member CPSR-Spain)