Tuesday February 2, 2010
Ban Porn Websites: Indian Chief Justice
By Hilary White
NEW DELHI February 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Chief Justice of India said this weekend that there is an “urgent” need to restrict the availability of websites featuring pornography.
“The government can place bans on websites that exclusively circulate pornography and hate speech,” Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said on Sunday.
He said that the suggestion did not intend to place a “blanket ban” on all websites and noted it is important to distinguish between pornography websites and service providers, website operators and individual users.
“Websites are created and updated for many useful purposes, but they can also be used to circulate offensive content such as pornography, hate speech and defamatory materials,” he said. He also warned that the internet can be abused to create violations of the property rights of authors and artists through the unauthorized circulation of their works.
“There has also been an upsurge in instances of financial fraud and cheating in relation to commercial transactions conducted online.”
Chief Justice Balakrishnan made his comments at a conference in New Delhi. He deplored the increasing instances of internet harassment, and the use of internet dating sites and social networking sites by “cyber-stalkers.” He warned that women and minors using the internet unsupervised are especially at risk.
“In many cases, images or videos are created without the consent of the persons involved and unscrupulously circulated for commercial gain. A routine practice is the morphing of the images of well-known persons into pornographic content. Such practices are a blatant invasion of privacy as well as attack on an individual’s dignity. However, there are inherent difficulties in using criminal laws to clamp down on them.”
Advocates for those victimized by human traffickers also warn that the internet is commonly used to find victims. The End Internet Trafficking Coalition says the net is commonly used to buy and sell human beings. They point to the use of websites offering “mail order brides” that are used to bring Asian women into the U.S. and Europe.