Benetton courts new controversy with Olympics ad

Italy's Benetton clothing group on Friday ran a two-page ad showing a Tibetan monk and a Chinese soldier at prayer for the victims of the May earthquake in China's Sichuan province.

Emblazoned across the top of the ad is the word "VICTIMS" in large black letters swathed in grey blotches suggesting smoke or dust.

The ad, published in leading Italian newspapers and the French paper Le Monde, was timed to coincide with the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Benetton said.

The campaign appears open to interpretation, given that two months before the Sichuan quake, which claimed some 70,000 lives after it struck in May, China had deployed a massive security force to quash an uprising in Tibet, the region it has ruled for 57 years.

Tibetans in exile say scores if not hundreds were killed there and in other regions where anti-Beijing protests broke out.

But a Benetton spokeswoman said: "We absolutely don't wish to take sides for China or Tibet. It's a universal message of peace, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence between people, which does not favour one or the other."

She told AFP: "We tried to allow a free interpretation of this image, a message of peace in the tradition of all the advertising campaigns of the Benetton house."

Benetton has come under fire for a number of ad campaigns, notably those created by the photographer Oliviero Toscani on subjects such as HIV-AIDS, homosexuality and anorexia.

"We deliberately chose to launch this campaign on the opening day of the Olympics, to celebrate these Games," the Benetton official said.

The ad reads: "Benetton Asia Pacific supports the Red Cross in its aid for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake," and notes that T-shirts of the image are on sale at Benetton stores.

In its magazine "Colors," Benetton published 30 of the "most significant and moving" photographs of the Sichuan earthquake and 30 prayers from Tibetan monks for the Chinese victims.