AT5 reports that seven fans of Amsterdam’s Ajax football club have been arrested for wearing shirts that sported the number 1312 before the match against Heracles last Sunday.

Police officers apparently were insulted by numbers, as they seem to believe the outcome of 1312 is “all cops are bastards.”

Football blog footballculture.nl—presumably fearing that if the police keep up their censoring ways, fans will have to go naked at this rate—came up with a completely innocuous T-shirt (photo) sporting an apple, some kind of citrus fruit, a member of the Ananas family, and a banana (Dutch names: appel, citroen, ananas, banaan).

See also:

• Man arrested for having insulting, tattooed abbreviation
• Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals (NRC)
• Police still required to fulfil ticket quota (RNW)

The 7-meter-high artwork “Miss Universe” by Dutch-born American Lara Schnitger exhibited in the Sonsbeek exhibition ‘Grandeur’ in Arnhem was adjusted after people complained about the ‘pornographic character’ of her work. The artist decided to cover up genitals on the work with little red hearts, which actually ruined the work for many people. Ironically, no one from the organisation had any problems with her work, but visitors did. Schnitger’s intention was to make a work about love, but apparently the photographic quality of people making love is still pornographic to many.

The usual remarks range from ‘too bad if people are shocked, it’s art’ to ‘religious art has naked people too, should we put stickers on it’. Well, that last one is considered less explicit and realistic than photography nowadays. Roland Barthes comes to mind very quickly all of a sudden.

(Link and photo: gelderlander.nl)