{"id":8559,"date":"2011-03-31T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=8559"},"modified":"2011-03-31T12:13:43","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T16:13:43","slug":"manga-translator-convicted-under-swedish-child-porn-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/03\/31\/manga-translator-convicted-under-swedish-child-porn-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Manga translator convicted under Swedish child-porn law"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a telling result that someone who is paid to translate Japanese manga can fall afoul of child porn laws<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Last year, Lundstr\u00f6m was convicted of possession of pornographic material after 50-odd Manga images stored on his hard drive were classified as child porn. The Swedish court of appeal later agreed that 39 of the illustrated images, none of which has been banned in Japan and none of which shows real people, fitted the definition of child porn. Lundstr\u00f6m was fined 5,000 Swedish Crowns (\u00a3500). Meanwhile, his main employer, publisher Bonnier Carlsen, has stopped giving him translating commissions, and Lundstr\u00f6m has been burdened with a reputation of traversing the biggest taboo of our time: getting off on kids. The case has now been appealed to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Cultural commentator Ulrika Knutson did not exaggerate when, earlier this week, she described the case as a \u2018Swedish censorship scandal, perhaps the worst one in modern times\u2019. As she points out, it should not simply be left to \u2018other young cartoon nerds and Manga fans\u2019 to defend Lundstr\u00f6m against the legal and moral trials he has been subjected to since a note informing him that he was suspected of child pornography crimes was slipped through his home mailbox last summer. Instead, anyone who values freedom of speech must also defend the renowned Manga expert.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whether you like or dislike Manga, it’s one of Japan’s biggest cultural exports. It may not be mainstream entertainment, but there are lots of fans in all western countries. If Sweden and other countries are going to retroactively decide that they are considered child porn, the courts are going to be very, very busy:<\/p>\n

\n

In other words, Swedes are not allowed to own or intentionally look at drawn images of non-real characters that a court could determine might to some people resemble child-like figures in situations that for some could be sexually arousing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an absurd situation: judges deliberating over the artistic merits of images, trying to determine what stage of puberty illustrated characters might be at and speculating over what kind of thoughts they might stimulate among adults. As for Lundstr\u00f6m\u2019s images, apparently the judges who convicted him felt that Manga comics, which are read and loved by millions around the world, violate children. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a telling result that someone who is paid to translate Japanese manga can fall afoul of child porn laws: Last year, Lundstr\u00f6m was convicted of possession of pornographic material after 50-odd Manga images stored on his hard drive were classified as child porn. The Swedish court of appeal later agreed that 39 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[62,24,9,28],"tags":[52,343,408,283],"class_list":["post-8559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-japan","category-law","category-media","tag-absurd","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-pornography","tag-sweden"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2e3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8561,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559\/revisions\/8561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}