The Democratic Party of Japan is moving to support freedom of expression, proposing an amendment to the anti-loli law of last year which would overlook “simple possession” of pornography featuring underage participants, but attach harsh punishment to the commercial sale of such material.

Lolicon have naturally switched their voting preferences accordingly.

The Democrats propose amendments which would prohibit the commercial production, sale and distribution of pornography featuring minors, attaching a maximum 3 year sentence to the offence.

Other changes sought include altering “child porn” to read “items depicting juvenile sexual acts and similar”, and the inclusion of hidden camera material in the law.

However, citing the potential for abuse of search powers by the state, they propose simply possessing the material be overlooked; previously it carried a slightly reduced sentence if the materials were for satisfying “sexual curiosity”.

No mention of 2D materials is being made, which observers unanimously interpret as an unwillingness to legislate on the issue.

The ruling LDP already put off deciding whether to extend its ban to 2D images, but it seems the Democratic proposal will not target 2D, although this is not beyond doubt.

Via Jiji and 2ch.

The Democrats themselves harbour many moralists and extreme feminists, and as we have seen before are quite capable of proposing highly objectionable legislation.

However, they also harbour many civil libertarians; recently some have even made vociferous rebuttals to the calumnies heaped upon Japan by the likes of UNICEF, where they claim Japan to be a “major producer” of underage porn.

As a result, the actions of the Democrats are at times rather inconsistent, but they do have generally strong credentials where civil liberties are concerned.

Of course, whether the amendment passes is another matter…