Hong Kong blogger faces charges for posting indecent images
By Erina Lin, Tuesday 24 July 2007 at 00:06 :: General :: #299 :: rss
Global Voice editor and Inmediahk.net blogger OiWan Lam is facing a 12-month imprisonment or HK$400,000 fine for posting and linking to images which authorities consider “indecent.”
Lam is protesting the standard the government has to determine obscenity by publishing the art photograph and articles. Flickr, where Lam linked the images from, has limited Hong Kong users access of the Photos Lam referred, as well as other possibly obscene images.
On May 11, Lam posted an article on Inmediahk.net to protest against the arrest of a citizen who put a hyperlink to an erotic Web site on a forum online, Asia Media has reported. She put a hyperlink to a foreign pornographic site and urged readers to follow with more links, as well as posting an image by Jake Applebaum from Flickr, showing a woman with her breasts exposed. The photo has been removed from Inmediahk.net. She told the reporter that she chose the image because she could expect it to be classified as “indecent” based on the standard of Obscene Article Tribunal “counting the number of exposed vital parts.”
Lam was notified of the Tribunal’s final findings as “Category II: Indecent” on July 7, and now faces prosecution by the police. She told BBC Five Live earlier that the standard on obscenity is an “old law that is now applying to the Internet without revising.” Lam indicated that she does not intend to hire a lawyer and will defend herself in her court hearing, which is scheduled for Aug. 15.
Flickr, which part of Yahoo!, has limited Hong Kong users’ access to Applebaum’s albums since mid-June, and arose an extensive protest and a signature campaign against Flickr’ filtering policy among users.
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