Seventeen Polish pedophiles have been arrested along with over 100 other suspects in worldwide anti-kiddie porn raids in 15 countries.
The sting was initiated by the Spanish police using a computer program called Hispalis, which trawls the net looking for anyone downloading child pornography.
Polish police spokesman, Kamil Tomaszczuk told the PAP agency that the raids in Poland took place over three days earlier this week in Krakow, Gdansk and Lomza. The Police scooped up over 1000 discs and 66 computers.
"We seized several hundred pictures and several dozen short films of a pornographic nature involving children of less than 15 years of age. They included pictures involving animals."
All rather revolting, of course.
Pedophilia has grown steadily as a news story over the years in Poland since the end of communism, when this sort of thing just wasn’t talked about.
A few years ago one tabloid followed the example of a British counterpart by exposing the names and addresses of convicted pedos.
But due to the fact that this subject was a bit of a taboo for so long, primitive stereotypes abound among some of the simpler members of the community, who think that all pedophiles are gays, and all gays are pedophiles.
This belief was reinforced a few years ago by several high profile cases involving the Catholic church in Poznan.
Unfortunately for these fools, one of the people arrested this week was a woman.
They also ignore the fact that most pedophiles are rather warped heterosexuals.
If the kids in the photos and films were under the age of consent and had been forced or lured into posing for this material then, for sure, that is a crime and the person who uploaded the stuff should be chucked in jail and the key thrown away.
But should it be a crime just to look at this stuff? Looking at sick photos is disgusting and pathetic, but is it really a crime?
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Operation Orange Blossom
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5 comments:
"Just looking at this stuff" is probably not enough to be criminal but here is the problem of the "slippery slope" rearing its ugly head. Where do we draw the line? Poland is probably the last real bastion of strict adherence to Catholicism on the European continent (yes, even counting Italy) and it does not surprise me that these actions have been taken.
BTW, "the simpler members of the community"?? It's OK to say ignorant.
Good post, as usual.
Thanks Roman, and you are always very welcome here.
Pedophilia is one of the hardest subjects to be rational about - I find it so, anyway - but I do wonder about criminalising someone for only watching something. If that does lead them down a slippery slope, then once they have reached the bottom and the dirty little fantasies turn into behaviour, then that is when pedophilia becomes a crime. But watching something is very similar to thinking something. It all happens in their heads.
And thoughta are not criminal...yet.
In the USA there has been talk of trying to figure a way to criminalize looking at legal pix of minors. If someone has pedophile leanings, is not able to see legal pix, what would he do next?
This discussion was on Fox News.
I can only imagine the how Fox dealt with this issue - in their usual sensitive way, no doubt.
At sports day in many schools in the UK parents have to ask all the other parents for permission before they can take photos of their kid winning the egg and spoon race etc. People are so suspicious of each other. And that's the sadest thing.
That's an interesting point, DBN. If it is a crine to think that you are looking at a child when really it's an adult, then the crime - which is entirly in the mind of the viewer - must be a thought crime, because it is all happening in the imagination.
How can a thought be a crime?
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