08/06/2011 Equality and Non-Discrimination
“Pornography is an industry seeking profits and needing to expand by launching new products. Violent and extreme pornography is clearly dangerous. It threatens not only women’s dignity and their status in society, as ‘traditional’ pornography does, but also their actual physical integrity. Several studies show that pornography in general affects the viewer’s perception of women and attitudes towards them. As for violent pornography in particular, while it cannot by itself lead people to commit violent crimes, it can probably encourage those who have violent fantasies to act them out,” Michal Stuligrosz (Poland, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on violent pornography, said at a hearing organised in Paris today by the PACE Equal Opportunities Committee.
“Should we envisage measures to limit or prohibit the diffusion of violent and extreme pornography? Violent pornography can be defined as that depicting at the same time sex and violence such as torture, mutilation, even death. Extreme pornography features other ‘grossly disgusting’ content such as necrophilia and zoophilia,” the rapporteur stressed.
In the United Kingdom, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 made the possession of extreme pornographic content a criminal offence. But according to Andrew Shortland of the Police Service specialising in abusive and extreme images, the number of cases is small.
According to Markko Künnapu, representing the Estonian Ministry of Justice and Chairperson of the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention Committee, if pornography is to be made a criminal offence, the legislation in our member states must be broadly similar to make European co-operation easier.