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Law sought to ban child porn

ČR is the only EU country in which possession is no crime

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 14th, 2007 issue

Parliament is looking to pass a law outlawing the possession of child pornography after 63 Czechs were found to be among thousands nabbed from dozens of countries in an Austrian police sting recently.

The Justice Ministry says lawmakers will propose an amendment to the Czech Criminal Code by the end of the month, and that it could become law as early as the summer.
The Czech Republic is the only European Union country where it is legal to own child porn — though it is illegal to produce or distribute it. Because of that fact, the Czechs implicated by Austrian authorities are likely to escape punishment.
“The Czech Republic should be ashamed,” said Marie Vodičková, director of the Children at Risk Fund. “It is a proof of insufficient protection of children in our country. As possession of child porn is legal there is demand, Where there is demand there is supply, which means abuse of children.”
Austrian authorities announced Feb. 7 that they had information on 2,361 people from 77 countries who tried to access child pornography from a Russian Web site stored on a Vienna computer server and uploaded from the United Kingdom.
Austrian Interior Minister Günther Platter said the videos included images showing “the worst kind of child sexual abuse” of children of various ages, ranging up to 14, The New York Times reported.
Harald Gremel, an Austrian police expert on Internet crime who headed the investigation, said the videos appeared to have been made in Eastern Europe.
Austrian investigator Mario Hubmann said police gave Czech officials the information about the Czech clients through Interpol and will not pursue their prosecution.
“Possible prosecution of them now depends on Czech law,” he told the Czech News Agency.
Petr Weiss, a sexologist at Charles University, said that he has no opinion as to whether Parliament should pass a law against the possession of child porn but that there are arguments for and against such a law.  
He said a Danish study has shown that fewer children are sexually abused when pedophiles have access to child porn. On the other hand, the production of such pornography necessitates the abuse of children.
Magdalena Herelová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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