Equality Now to DPJ: “You Must Ban Hentai!”

Feminist censorship advocacy group Equality Now is launching yet another attack on “hentai,” vowing to make the newly elected DPJ administration ban any material it objects to.

Equality Now director Taina Bien-Aimé refuses to accept the industry’s extensive efforts at self-regulation and insists any “hentai” which her organisation objects to be banned outright:

“The EOCS ban is simply not enough given the scale of extreme pornography and violence against women in the Japanese gaming industry.

We need a government-mandated uniform standard applicable to all hentai production companies that will make it illegal to produce games that promote violence against women and girls.”

Using the demands of the UN’s Women’s Convention (CEDAW), which it exerts inordinate influence over, Equality Now seeks to legitimise its own illiberal demands that Japanese people be stripped of their Constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression by camouflaging them as a UN treaty obligation:

“Post-elections, Equality Now’s campaign will continue to pressure the corporations as well as urging the new DPJ administration to comply with its international obligations.

The DPJ administration must understand that by allowing the violent hentai gaming industry to flourish, Japan is in violation of its international commitments to uphold the rights of women and girls.

We encourage the DPJ, as the new ruling party of Japan, to show early and firm leadership in the protection and promotion of women’s rights, including by the critical step of implementing all recommendations of the CEDAW Committee.”

Equality Now and CEDAW were merely emboldened by the refusal of the eroge industry to defend itself from their demands, and are already talking about a ban on any material, whether anime, manga, or game, to which they object.

Whether the DPJ will heed their demands is still an open question; as a leftist party, the DPJ does contain feminist elements more extreme than the LDP, but it also harbours many civil libertarians, and lacks some of the more moralistic elements found in the LDP.

Equality Now have bemoaned the “unprecedented” backlash against their efforts to impose their morals onto Japan previously, so it appears they are unhappy about being on the receiving end of what they mete out to others.

Those wishing to voice their disgust at this organisation’s relentless assaults on freedom of expression can get in touch with them via their site.

Answering the call for a more organised defence of artistic liberty from the puritanical forces of censorship, a new organisation, Yes to Freedom, is seeking to directly counter the hitherto unchallenged media manipulation tactics of Equality Now and their accomplices at CEDAW. You can learn about their efforts at their official website.

You can also find pre-written and ready-to-send letters of support for freedom of speech, of just the sort Equality Now uses to browbeat their targets into submission, on their letter campaign page.