One of my colleagues looks to have already rejected this submission -- as Verdant Haven says, you submitted this way too soon.
Let's get back to draft and see if we can work this up, as there's interesting core dilemma here.
[DESCRIPTION] Recently, Violetists have again hit national headlines for their ever increasing lack of regard for civil rights. In response, activists have recreated one of the notorious icons of their tentacled goddess, by making her smile instead of ominously glower. This led to a series of clashes between the devotees and the activists, culminating in the near burning of several people at improvised stakes in @@CAPITAL@@’s city centre. With both groups seemingly ready to draw one another’s blood, the main instigators of the ordeal have ended up in your office.
The opening sentence is a bit odd, as it's generally only the powers that be that can be accused of disregard of civil rights. A single religion that is separate from government could be accused of having regressive attitudes, but unless they're in charge of the country in some way they're not in a position to be accused of having disregard for civil rights.
Then, you talk about activists, but what are these activists responding to? What are they activists for? Are they just anti-Violet activists? In the RL story, these were LGBT campaigners protesting the exclusion of LGBT people from society by the catholic church.
Then the last sentence is just a redundancy, saying nothing more than "and there's an Issue."
I suggest revisiting the core premise, and perhaps moving it closer to the original, while perhaps taking out any elements that point to a particular religion. That is, make it an issue about challenging a homophobic status quo.
For example, restrict the validity to nations with low LGBT rights, and then have it be something like:
LGBT campaigners are trying to draw attention to what they see as oppression of their civil rights in @@NAME@@, by reproducing photos of you, @@LEADER@@, but with your skin tone replaced by the colours of the rainbow.
That'd make it parallel to the RL issue, but approaching it with a slightly different take.