Yeetle Box - Latvian Festival of the Genitals

A British man was sentenced Tuesday to five days of detention for urinating on one of Latvia's most treasured monuments - the Freedom Monument A court official said the man will serve his detention in a police cell after being found guilty of urinating on the Freedom Monument.

The man has denied the charges, claiming he is incontinent, and, therefore, did not commit a disrespectful act, but an act of God. He then urinated on a court official. Later, while leaving the courtroom, he urninated on the courtroom steps, the sidewalk, his car, and the driver.

"It's an act of God and nature," he was heard to mutter. "Look at that thing. It shouts, 'Piss on it.'"

The 138-foot-high Freedom Monument, erected in 1935, is a symbol of the Baltic state's resistance to foreign rule, which included 50 years of Soviet occupation. People detained for acts of disrespect in the past have been fined. One man wearing a kilt exposed his genitals at the monument last year. "I'm a tourist," he announced. "I am showing my allegiance to Latvia."

Apparently, many people who approach the monument have a need to urinate, defrock, or in some way commit otherwise lascivious acts. The Latvian government has been sympathetic thus far, but is beginning to correct this problem by erecting the Latvian Festival of the Genitals Monument - to be completed by 2010.

The Yeetle Box