Fri, 18 Feb 2005

ACT and National join crack-down on freedom

"In the rush to increase penalties on child porn, Parliament has voted not only to increase penalties on child porn, but also on a wide variety of other material that has nothing to do with children," declared Libertarianz censorship spokesman Scott Wilson today.

"What began with a legitimate aim has concluded with a sledgehammer on free speech that is so bizarre that now the potential penalties for filming adults engaging in kinky consensual sex is double that for committing actual cruelty to children. I'm flabbergasted," says Wilson.

"The Films Videos and Publications Classification Bill does NOT just increase penalties for producing and possessing child pornography, it uses the insidious and hard-to-define term 'objectionable,'" notes Wilson. "This goes far wider than the vileness of videos that involve children being raped, which Libertarianz unequivocably find abhorrent, but also can include images, videos and written stories of: - Adults consensually engaging in bondage, discipline and sado-masochistic fantasies; - The cultivation and use of cannabis; - Young women over the age of consent dressing and acting in a manner 'reasonably regarded as being sexual in nature' - which may for example exclude the exposure of bare midriffs in music videos."

"Not only can't adults video themselves doing perfectly legal activities, but nobody can even write about growing cannabis without being treated on a par with child pornographers!" he says. "All the parties in Parliament except the Greens better explain to young couples that they daren't take photos of themselves in sexy clothes and poses, because it could be deemed 'objectionable' by whichever bureaucrat wishes to do so."

Libertarianz believes that censorship laws should only prohibit material which records the commission of a criminal acts, such as rape and child molestation. Libertarianz asserts that all material that does not, in itself, create a victim, should be legal, "which would commit police eforts to tracking down rape, assault and child molestation," says Wilson, "instead of spending time harrassing those who are hurting no one.¨

Wilson concluded with disgust that "ACT and National in particular have shown their true colours in the media frenzy on child porn. I expect such big brother statism from NZ First, United Future and Jim Anderton, but the parties of freedom are about as liberal as Brian Tamaki.¨

ENDS

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