An advert for an online retailer featuring a scantily-clad woman has been removed from a bus shelter in the Brabant town of Aalburg after protests by fundamentalist Protestants.

The advert for the Zalando webshop is ‘offensive to women’ and ‘a scandal’, according to the local branch of the SGP political party. ‘We do not think it appropriate to portray women this way, as objects of lust,’ local SGP leader Dert Vlaander told the AD.

In addition, the placing of poster breaks an agreement signed between the staunchly Protestant town council and the advertising hoarding company Clear Channel, he said.

‘Years ago we agreed with the advertising company that underwear and swimwear advertising would not be placed on hoardings. This one slipped through the net,’ local official Pim Bouman told the AD.

Christian parties dominate the local council and the SGP, which believes that the country should be governed ‘entirely on the basis of the ordinances of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures’, is the biggest of them, with four seats.

In SGP circles women are expected to dress modestly and wear skirts rather than trousers. They are also discouraged from getting involved in politics.