Legislator blasts ads for sex VCDs

The National Police Administration (NPA) yesterday vowed to crack down on the sale of pornographic VCDs on a religious cable channel, after PFP Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) criticized government administrators over their handling of matter. The Government Informa-tion Office (GIO), however, said the ads were legal.

At a press conference yesterday, Lee accused Peng Lai Hsien Shan (蓬萊仙山, Wonderland), one of Taiwan's four main religious cable channels, of carrying advertisements for pornographic VCDs after midnight. The lawmaker said that the practice had been going on for a number of months.

Showing a tape of the commercials, Lee said that the channel had abused Taiwan's communications laws and damaged the thinking of young people.

Reacting to Lee's charges, a GIO official who took part in the press conference said that the content of the commercials didn't violate the Broadcasting and Television Law (廣播電視法).

"This is why we failed to take action. Simply put, the commercials had no images containing full frontal nudity," said the official.

But NPA officials came to a different conclusion, saying that the commercials violated the Criminal Code and the Anti-Sexual Business Provisions for Children and Teen-agers (兒童及青少年性交易防治條例), and that the NPA would immediately investigate the case.

The NPA officials said the advertisements violate Articles 235 of the Criminal Code, which outlaws the distribution of "indecent" materials.

The distribution of indecent materials is punishable by a two-year prison term and the authorities are entitled to confiscate the materials.

The Anti-Sexual Business Provisions for Children and Teenag-ers, meanwhile, states that distributors of indecent videos, books, and pictures over the Internet, TV channels or publications are subject to a sentence of up to five-years imprisonment and/or fines of up to NT$1 million.

While Chang Shih-ping (張世平), an NPA official, vowed to investigate the case, he declined to give further details about what actions his department might take.

Explaining why the NPA failed to look into the case earlier, Chang said the department may not unilaterally investigate cases like this but must wait until they are reported.

Wonderland's manager, Chen Chun-ho (陳春和), meanwhile, said that his company regretted the mistake and in future would check advertisements and materials broadcast by the channel more carefully.

"We failed to pay sufficient attention to advertisements produced by other communication companies, but we will take the remedial action we should take," Chen said.