Berlin toughens child pornography law

Germany has amended its laws prohibiting the sale of pornographic images of children, a legal gray area that until now saw no rigorous definition in place for offenders, and relatively lax minimum prison sentences.

At a debate ahead of the parliamentary vote on Friday, Federal Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the amendment now made it "absolutely clear that nobody in Germany could use a child's body to earn money," adding, however, that parents could still take pictures of their naked children without worrying about breaking the law.

The new law qualifies an image or video as pornography if it "shows the unclad genitals or buttocks of a child or adolescent, or if a clad child or adolescent is pictured in a way that accentuates those body parts," said Johannes Fechner, a parliamentary legal spokesman for the Social Democrats, the junior coalition partner of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats.

Under the current law, the sale of child pornography carries a one-year prison sentence or a fine, while possession carries a sentence of two years or a fine. The new bill would increase the minimum punishment for the former to two years and the latter to three years.

New law follows scandal

The amendment in its original form was to prohibit any unauthorized photograph of naked minors, but those plans faced strong criticism from opposition parties in parliament. Instead, only the sale and trade of such images and videos are to be deemed criminal.

With the passing of this law, the federal government has now reacted officially to a scandal that rocked the parliament late last year, when allegations arose that a lawmaker had possessed child pornography.

Sebastian Edathy, who resigned from parliament in February following the allegations, admitted to purchasing "some material" from the Canadian firm azovfilms, insisting that it was "absolutely legal." Due to the unspecified definition of child pornography, and issues regarding Edathy's parliamentary immunity, he faced no federal charges at the time. State prosecutors in Lower Saxony, where Edathy resides, have since filed charges of the possession of child pornography. The investigation is ongoing.

glb/mkg (dpa, Reuters)