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Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category

AFP: Japan must crack down on child porn: activists

(AFP) – 14.05.2010

TOKYO — Japan’s government must crack down on rampant child pornography, which proliferates on the Internet causing great mental anguish for its victims, an activist group demanded Friday.

Japan is considered a major global source of child porn — in part because, while production and distribution of child pornography are illegal, its possession is not.

Keiji Goto, head of the lawyers’ Forum Against Child Pornography, said he did not understand why the centre-left government in power since last year has not cracked down on images depicting the sexual exploitation of minors.

On many child porn websites, he said, ‘most of the victimised children have their faces exposed in images that are posted and distributed on the Internet forever, and they suffer from mental and physical trauma forever.’

Goto spoke a day after Tokyo police arrested 20 people, and referred cases of seven others to prosecutors, for allegedly posting child porn on a website opened by a high school student for access via mobile phones.

The National Police Agency this year reported that law enforcers took action in a record 935 child porn cases last year, up 38 percent from 2008.

Goto also called for a ban on child pornography in the form of manga cartoons and computer graphics, which are now legal, saying they ‘are as realistic as the child pornography in the form of video and photography.’

‘One of the worst cases of those animation images depicts a graphic scene of the rape of an infant,’ Goto said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. ‘Tolerating this means our society tolerates child pornography.’

A National Police Agency survey showed about 25 percent of child porn images posted on the Internet had not been deleted despite requests made last December for Internet service providers to do so, Kyodo News reported Friday.

The government, which took power last September, has said it plans to draw up new measures against child pornography by June, based on guidelines mapped out by police, education, justice and other senior officials.

A group of Japanese cartoonists in March protested against a Tokyo metropolitan government plan to tighten rules against sexual images of minors in comics, animation and computer game software.

Japan’s capital had proposed to call on publishers to exercise greater restraint on sales of any cartoon works that feature sexual depictions of characters that people would assume to be under age.

The cartoonists said the measures would ‘violate freedom of expression.

JP – Japan hit over child porn: (Japan Times)
The head of UNICEF has condemned Japan’s laws on child pornography, saying the country is falling behind global standards and is guilty of spreading illegal material abroad. ‘Japan and Russia are the only two G8 countries that do not ban civil possession of child pornography,’ Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, the U.N. body that campaigns for children’s rights, said at a news conference at the group’s Tokyo branch.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

(Via TorrentFreak.)

‘Wanted’ P2P Pre-Releaser Gets 2 Year Jail Sentence

All around the world, people who pre-release media onto the Internet face the prospect of harsh treatment if caught. The crew at EliteTorrents felt the full force of the DOJ for their uploading of Star Wars: Episode III, the uploaders on OiNK face uncertainty as their criminal trial is delayed again, and Kevin Cogill, the Chinese Democracy uploader, faces a year of confinement.

In September we reported that a Japanese man had been caught uploading the movie ‘Wanted’ before its Japanese theatrical release. Kazushi Hirata, a 33 year old from the city of Sendai, had painstakingly added Japanese subtitling to the movie, before uploading it to the Winny network. Following a complaint from Japan’s answer to the MPAA (Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association), Hirata was tracked down by the Kyoto Prefectural Police, the same department responsible for the 2004 arrest of Isamu Kaneko, the creator of the Winny software.

Less than a month after his September 20th arrest, November 11th saw Hirata pleading guilty to violating Japan’s copyright laws and faced the prospect of up to 10 years jail and a $95,000 fine. Yesterday the court came back with its sentencing decision.

Hirata was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years.

‘The conviction sends an important message about the illegality of movie piracy,’ said Jimca executive director Yasutaka Iiyama adding, ‘Respect for intellectual property rights is critical to Japan’s economy and cultural identity.’

The arrest of Mr Hirata is believed to be the first in Japan relating to the uploading of a pre-release movie.

Japanese Police Pursue Child Porn: “Citing an increase in online sexual exploitation as well as an enhanced level of public awareness of the issue, the Japanese national police have pursued more than 300 child pornography cases so far this year.”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Only 20% of known child porn sites heed watchdog’s call to shut down | The Japan Times Online: “Saturday, July 5, 2008

Only 20 percent of some 1,600 known child pornography sites were taken off the Internet in 2007 despite pressure from a Tokyo-based watchdog that monitors the harmful sites, the group said Friday.

As the Internet Hotline Center Japan is not authorized to enforce deletions or issue requests for such action to foreign servers, cross-border exchanges of pornographic images continue.”

The center detected 1,609 child porn sites last year, based mainly on tipoffs, and urged the taking down of 526 whose servers are located in Japan. However, only 339 accepted the request. The center is under the control of the Internet Association of Japan, an incorporated foundation entrusted by the National Police Agency with monitoring harmful Internet sites.

The contents of the detected sites included naked images of children and violent acts against them, and they are believed to have been shot in Japan as well as abroad, it said. Among the Group of Eight nations, Japan and Russia have no legislation to prohibit possession of child porn.

Bill takes aim at child porn holders, The Japan Times Online: “Saturday, May 17, 2008

Kyodo News, Bill takes aim at child porn holders

The ruling coalition has compiled a bill to stiffen the law against child prostitution and child pornography by criminalizing the possession of such pornographic material for personal use, sources said Friday.

While the current law does not cover individual possession of child pornography, the revised bill states, ‘Nobody should own or keep child pornography,’ and stipulates a prison term of up to one year or a fine of up to ¥1 million for violators, they said.”

The bill also requires Internet service providers to contribute to preventing the dissemination of child pornography, which occurs across national borders, and to cooperate with authorities in investigations, they said.

The bill does not cover pornographic animation or computer graphics, only focusing on photography.

The Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition plans to submit the bill to the ongoing Diet session through June 15, but is not expected to be able to reach an agreement with the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition party, over the legislation.

While the DPJ is now considering compiling its own revision bill, some of the party’s lawmakers have voiced concerns about punishing those who only own child pornography, with a senior member saying, “It may lead to unfair investigations.”