Posts Tagged ‘obscenity’

Why should Amazon be our taste and decency police?

June 26th, 2012

AmazonThe online retailer has been criticised for profiting from ebooks featuring terror and violence. No one should tell us what to read, says Jo Glanville
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Malta: Attorney General reignites obscenity case

April 5th, 2011


The author of a fictional story of sexual conquests may yet face jail on the conservative Mediterranean island. Charles Young reports
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India: Writer charged with obscenity for debut novel

March 25th, 2010

Author Murzban Shroff has been charged with obscenity and making “prejudicial” remarks to “national integration” in his novel Breathless in Bombay. The latter charge is based on the use of the word “ghati”; a defamatory term for Maharashtrians, people from the Maharashtra region in western India. Following Shroff’s hearing at the Bombay High Court on Friday, Justice BR Gavai ordered that police not to take any “coercive action” against the author during the ongoing investigation but he granted the prosecution three weeks to file a reply.

Manga collector sentenced to six months in prison

February 15th, 2010

Christopher Handley, 39-year-old office worker, was sentenced on 11 february to six months in prison for mailing obscene matter, and “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” Following this sentence, Handley must serve three years of supervised release and five years of probation. Handley was charged under the 2003 Protect Act, which outlaws cartoons, drawings, sculptures or paintings depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Another victim of an archaic law

July 1st, 2009

darryn-walkerDarryn Walker has suffered unemployment and vilification for writing a pornographic story. The censorious obscenity law that allows this to happen must be scrapped, say John Ozimek and Julian Petley
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Girls Aloud obscenity case dropped

June 29th, 2009

girls_aloud_darryn_walker
The Crown Prosecution Service has dropped its case against Darryn Walker, the civil servant who was facing trial under the Obscene Publications Act for writing a violent pornographic fantasy story about pop group Girls Aloud.
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US TV swearing policy ‘correct’

April 29th, 2009

The US government’s policy of fining broadcasters over the use of swear words on live TV is justified, the Supreme Court has ruled. Read more here

Setting the censorship standard

April 28th, 2009

julian
Thirty years on, the Williams Committee Report still provides a better framework for film classification than the lamentable Obscene Publications Act, says
Julian Petley
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