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Manga Images Depicting Children Lead to Conviction in UK
An anonymous reader writes with this news from the UK, as reported by Ars Technica: A 39-year-old UK man has been convicted of possessing illegal cartoon drawings of young girls exposing themselves in school uniforms and engaging in sex acts. The case is believed to be the UK's first prosecution of illegal manga and anime images. Local media said that Robul Hoque was sentenced last week to nine months' imprisonment, though the sentence is suspended so long as the defendant does not break the law again. Police seized Hoque's computer in 2012 and said they found nearly 400 such images on it, none of which depicted real people but were illegal nonetheless because of their similarity to child pornography. Hoque was initially charged with 20 counts of illegal possession but eventually pled guilty to just 10 counts.
This is when people just go too far.. It's a f-ing drawing, it's not real..
This just tells me the people who made these laws are really in need of some psychotherapie if they think these drawings should be forbidden.. What's next, put people in jail just for what they are thinking?
Just FYI, the rule against illegal cartoons exists in the USA too. The Supreme Court struck down attempts to use CP laws in this way as being obvious nonsense, so Congress just went ahead and amended the law to make it explicitly illegal as opposed to implicitly illegal.
Unfortunately a lot of crap like this ends up being brought into otherwise sane legal systems thanks to pressure from the USA to "upgrade" national laws to meet the "latest standards". Japan has been pressured for years to tighten its CP laws, being publicly named and shamed etc - the primary justification for not doing so was fear of false positives. Like this one. And like the notorious cases where two teenagers can legally have sex but not photograph themselves doing it.
Fact is, politicians love being able to say they made the law tougher on paedophiles. It's a sure popularity winner. So it's inevitable you end up with idiocy like this.
He should pay restitution to the victims, except that there are none. In the US, the Supreme Court overturned a similar, Clinton era, law on the basis that there are no proven victims.
We could also ban political contributions because that's like bribery.
In all seriousness I do remember an argument against this type of crap in congress that basically said this was a regulation of taste, and if you ban things that are similar to child pornography couldn't you also ban images of women with small breasts because they evoke thoughts of children? (paraphrase)
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
The problem is there are not enough pedophiles to prosecute. The state has been forced to "create" pedophiles.
Indeed.
So where do I go to file a lawsuit against all them old mansions for 'displaying child porn' with the cherub stonework in full display.
Children abound.. some of them with their dangly bits out... 0_o
http://carvingswithstories.blo...
Looks like a sex act t'me guv.
I have to wonder how the judge draws the line between something like this conviction and, say, the Simpsons Movie, where Bart is rocking some full frontal on the big screen.
There's a difference, for sure -- one is funny and clearly a cartoon, whereas one sounds like it's purposefully sexualizing children. So the conviction could be grounded in intent. But it's a hell of a slippery slope.
--------------------- -me, Crusher of those who are Foolish (don't be foolish)
Hmm... the Taliban destroyed art that was against their "moral" understanding of things. They punish people just for listening to music or looking at art they described as "immoral".
It get the uncomfortable feeling we are witnessing the birth of the "Western Taliban" that makes as much things "immoral" as possible, and punishing people for looking at it. I am afraid it's just an matter of time before even medieval art becomes illigal (you know - paintings of naked children with wings crawling around an big breasted half/full naked adult must be the ultime child porn).
What next? Book burning (lolita comes to mind)? Burning medieval art? Locking people up for going to an museum?
Where is an end to this idiocy? Will it become even worst and are we entering an new braindead Victorian age?
Actually Government ministers have stated a desire to extend the law to written materials.
Since the laws on images include scenes of bondage, the moment they extend it to written materials I'm bringing around 400,000 private prosecutions against women that own 50 Shades.
No. But such is the moral panic over child molestation in the UK that no-one dare stand up and defend him.
I don't think you could build a good case that "moral panic" over child molestation is the biggest problem the UK has in this regard, viz:
Rotherham child abuse scandal: 1,400 children exploited, report finds
Prof Jay said: "No-one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited over the full inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013."
Revealing details of the inquiry's findings, Prof Jay said: "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered."
The inquiry team found examples of "children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone ....
The report found: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."
Failures by those charged with protecting children happened despite three reports between 2002 and 2006 which both the council and police were aware of, and "which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham".
No indeed, it appears the "moral panic" you are looking for is not about child molestation.
Rotherham child sexual abuse scandal is tip of iceberg, says police chief
There will be more Rotherham-style child sexual exploitation scandals unearthed in the coming months as the “stone is lifted” on the scale of abuse perpetrated on the young, one of Britain’s top police officers has warned.
Children are being abused an hour after being groomed online, Rotherham sex abuse scandal expert warns
Paedophiles are abusing children in real life within an hour of grooming them online, the professor who led the investigation into the Rotherham sex abuse scandal has warned.
Professor Alexis Jay, who compiled a report into how gangs of mainly Asian men groomed, terrorised and abused 1,400 girls as young as 11 in Rotherham over a 16-year period said sex abuse went on undetected in many other areas across Britain.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Today's also the day that the guys responsible for prosecuting child pornography offenders stated that they lack the resources and would only prosecute the highest priority cases - leaving around 50,000 alleged offenders uncharged.
So that's up to 50,000 people that allegedly have images of actual child sex that wont be charged, and one person with cartoons that's been found guilty.
Fucked up situation indeed. Interesting that it's his second conviction for breaching child pornography laws without ever being found in possession of child pornography. And people wonder why I refuse to browse porn sites these days..
When I was living in Japan, a friend asked me to send him a copy of Inu Yasha volume 1 so he could give it to his daughter. She wanted to use it to help study the Japanese language. It was her favorite anime and she wanted to read the manga. I was about to send it to him and noticed that there is a scene with Kagome (the heroine) bathing naked. She's meant to be 14. Not wanting to get my friend involved in importing child porn, I ended up not sending it. It is a shame that a 14 year old girl can't read her favorite manga because there is a picture of a naked 14 year old girl in it. Laws are laws, though...
The LA Times link above briefly mentions a few rather interesting and salient points about known paedophiles:
Firstly, compared to their peer group, they are on average an inch shorter, their IQ is about 10 points lower and a much greater proportion than is normal are left handed.
Secondly, compared to their peers or even other prisoners, they have a lot less white matter in their brains.
Thirdly, paedophillia does not appear to be learned behaviour; being the victim of a paedophile does not predispose that person to becoming one.
These apparently point to paedophillia being partly caused by a developmental disorder, one which strikes fairly early in life, even before birth. As such, we ought really to be looking for whatever environmental toxin is causing this problem, with a view to removing it. My guess would be an almost-harmless virus, or perhaps a heavy metal of some sort. It would be interesting to know if paedophillia is linked to lead in the environment, as is more general forms of criminality (which are again linked to disrupted brain development).
The final point is a not-so-obvious one. What we need to know is if pornography acts to incite acts of paedophillia, or acts to satiate the desire to perform such acts. The easiest way to tell might be to compare cultures where normal pornography is easy to get, to those where it is very difficult to get, and see if the rates of sexual attacks and deviant acts vary between the cultures. Does anyone know if such a study has been done?
Anyone that thinks that a picture of a naked 14-year old girl is pornography is the problem.
Ephobephilia, exclusive or not , is ridicilously common (10 to 20% prevalence depending on the study). Pedophilia IIRC barely scratch the 0.2 to 0.5%. What is the difference ? Secondary sexual characteristic. See in some country people have been flagging teh attraction to underage male & female NO MATTER THE AGE as pedophilia. But the reality is that pedophilia has a clear definition is the attraction to a child which does not display secondary sexual characteristic. Ephebophiliac on the other hand are attracted to young postpubescent teennager which display such sexual characteristic (for example young 14 year old female girl with breast) but are not at all itnerrested into prepubere children , like a 5 year old.
The problem is that in some country like the USA people are mistaking one for the other. They accuse often ephebophiliac as being pedophiliac. They are not the same category, they ephebophiliac,e xclusive or not, are not even recognized as a pathology, only true pedophiliac are.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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