ICELAND—Iceland’s former Interior Minister and current MP Ögmundur Jónasson (pictured) says that despite the change of government in the last election that derailed plans to institute a total ban on internet porn, he remains supportive of a ban and is still working to implement one.
According to Motherboard, “Iceland is the most sparsely-populated country in Europe with a population of 320,000. It also has the highest rate of internet users at 95 percent. If the porn ban goes through, porn will be illegal to watch in Iceland. The Icelandic government is planning to use internet filters, similar to Chinese firewalls, to block porn in the country.”
The site also caught up with Jónasson for a brief interview about the porn ban, which he said remains an important issue because “it is a question of human rights.”
Speaking of the adult industry, he deems it a “a ruthless greedy industry," and refers to the people who work in it as “salesmen of violence.”
Though unabashed in his complete disregard for the adult industry, and committed to making access to it illegal throughout the country, Jónasson appears fixated on one aspect of porn only: violent porn. When asked about the definition of pornography, he responded, “Eroticism may be art, and nudity and sex may be presented artistically and beautifully. If being violent to other people—hurting others—has become an art form in somebody’s mind—I must say that I for one would associate this with degeneration if not criminality and not art. And violence is not to be venerated. As to the definition of porn, then this is something we had legal experts look into. Porn is banned in the Icelandic penal law but definition is lacking and I asked this to be looked into with respect to practice in other countries such as Norway. What we are concerned with is violence rather than sex.”
But when asked if he agrees that not all porn is violent, he said, “I am not against nakedness, nor am I against sex. I am against violence. And I am against an industry that does not leave our children alone.”
When asked about the free speech implications in banning all porn to address an isolated problem, however, he replied, “They are failing to see that the internet is not society as such but part of society, a medium which must be used responsibly. If the salesmen of violence are forcing their way into the world of our children with material we would never tolerate on a school stage or on a street corner, why on earth should we tolerate it on the internet?”
It would appear that no matter how successfully his misperceptions about porn are challenged, Jónasson is determined to support an online porn ban, no matter what.
