Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said The Tokyo District Court found Monotori Kishi, a 54-year-old publisher, guilty of distributing obscene printed material and handed him a one-year prison term suspended for three years. Kishi's defence counsel had argued that an article in Japan's penal code, which prohibits the sale and distribution of obscene literature, violated the constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. Japan apologized again on Monday for the suffering of women who served as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, a day after comments by a cabinet minister drew an angry reaction in South Korea.
Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday. The two sides have been unable to set a date for a regular summit meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, 成人影片 (check out this one from Wins) which they had agreed to hold by the end of June. Jun Byung-hun, a spokesman for South Korea's ruling Uri Party, said on Sunday.
Eminent academics and critics had testified that it was not a matter for the state to judge obscenity and restricting expression was unconstitutional. Two people -- the cartoonist and the chief editor of the comic book -- have been fined 500,000 yen (4,700 dollars) each. Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama was quoted by media over the weekend as saying the term "comfort women," a euphemism for the sex slaves, 黃色A級 did not exist during the war and it was good the term had disappeared from school textbooks Japan's top government spokesman sought to contain any further damage, saying Tokyo was sorry for the sex slaves.
A comic book which depicts genitalia and sexual acts in two thirds of its content was ruled obscene in a landmark court case which has sparked a debate on freedom of expression in Japan. In a bid to narrow the gap over history, the two governments launched a joint study four years ago, but a report on its results issued on Friday showed the two sides were sharply at odds on many subjects, including the sex slaves issue.
Ties between Japan and South Korea have been strained by a range of feuds, including one over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead which Seoul, like China, sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. It was the first Japanese court trial in which a comic book stood accused of being obscene and the first in 20 years dealing with printed pornography, despite the presence of a huge amount of pornographic cartoons, 高清A片 photographs and videos on bookstands and 日韓無碼 on the Internet in Japan Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan's wartime aggression, said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women" who were drafted into military brothels.
Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday. The two sides have been unable to set a date for a regular summit meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, 成人影片 (check out this one from Wins) which they had agreed to hold by the end of June. Jun Byung-hun, a spokesman for South Korea's ruling Uri Party, said on Sunday.
Eminent academics and critics had testified that it was not a matter for the state to judge obscenity and restricting expression was unconstitutional. Two people -- the cartoonist and the chief editor of the comic book -- have been fined 500,000 yen (4,700 dollars) each. Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama was quoted by media over the weekend as saying the term "comfort women," a euphemism for the sex slaves, 黃色A級 did not exist during the war and it was good the term had disappeared from school textbooks Japan's top government spokesman sought to contain any further damage, saying Tokyo was sorry for the sex slaves.
A comic book which depicts genitalia and sexual acts in two thirds of its content was ruled obscene in a landmark court case which has sparked a debate on freedom of expression in Japan. In a bid to narrow the gap over history, the two governments launched a joint study four years ago, but a report on its results issued on Friday showed the two sides were sharply at odds on many subjects, including the sex slaves issue.
Ties between Japan and South Korea have been strained by a range of feuds, including one over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead which Seoul, like China, sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. It was the first Japanese court trial in which a comic book stood accused of being obscene and the first in 20 years dealing with printed pornography, despite the presence of a huge amount of pornographic cartoons, 高清A片 photographs and videos on bookstands and 日韓無碼 on the Internet in Japan Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan's wartime aggression, said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women" who were drafted into military brothels.