Extreme Porn Law - Write to the Lords! (0)

emark's profile

Posted by emark on Sat 5 Apr 08, 2:50 PM

The "extreme porn" law is being debated in the House of Lords[1] - two amendments are proposed, either to remove the clauses altogether, or to restrict it to images that are both images of actual sexual offences and that would be illegal to publish under the Obscene Publications Act. The best thing people can do now is to write to Lords asking them to oppose the law or support the amendments, as the amendments risk not getting enough support.

It's easily done by following the links from http://www.theyworkforyou.com/peers/ , or http://www.writetothem.com/ , or there is a list of email addresses.

People can write to any Lord (obviously there is no obligation for them to represent people's views, but they can listen to arguments and not have to worry about votes). Even just picking a Lord at random may do good (those who have spoken in the debates already know about the issues and have probably all been targetted by people).

The bill has received significantly more criticism (here and here) than in the House of Commons.

The amendments in question are proposed by Lord Wallace Of Tankerness and Baroness Miller Of Chilthorne Domer (original source).

The timing is critical - the final debates will happen in the Lords by the end of this month (21, 23 and/or 30 April), and the Government wants the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill to be law by 8 May [2]. A curious effect is that this apparently means they will likely approve whatever amendments the Lords make, without the usual game of Parliamentary ping-pong...

[1] It got passed through the Commons unamended, seemingly because there wasn't enough time in the third reading of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill to cover all parts of the bill. The Lords noted what a shambles this was, and stated they would want to debate the issues fully.

[2] Something about prison officers striking - http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2008-02-... .

Edited Sat 5 Apr 08, 7:16 PM by emark


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