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Cambodian Court Clears Japanese Photographer of Porn Charge

December 7, 2010 /PN/ Japanese photographer Go Takayama, 28, and two Cambodians have been released from jail following a hearing in Siem Reap Provincial Court, during which charges of producing pornography and taking dozens of images of sex workers at a brothel were withdrawn

Takayama, a participant in a workshop at the Angkor Photo Festival, was arrested in late November and charged last week. 

Local officials have alleged that he photographed women at brothels in Siem Reap, though organizers of the Angkor Photo Festival say the photos in question were inoffensive portraits of a married couple.

Organizers of the festival have strongly denied the 78 images of the couple hugging and touching were pornographic, and several international journalism and photography groups have spoken out in support of Takayama in recent days.

"There is absolutely no nudity in any of the photographs, no genitals or anything like that", said Jessica Lim, one of the organizers of the Angkor Photo Festival. "His camera and the confiscated pictures will be returned to him."

Takayama's release comes after a high-ranking Cambodian government minister spoke out on the photographer’s behalf.



5 comments:

  1. Anonymous says

    some call porn what most of us call art. isn't that surprising?


    Cal says

    You cannot fight culture. This is it.


    Anonymous says

    Depends what you call culture.


    Anonymous says

    It's interesting how countries such as Cambodia, ever eager to make a buck, will sign up for jamborees such as the Ankor Photo Festival or just about anything that might lend some form of international credibility to their culture-depleated society as well as intice gulible foreigners to come and off-load buckets of cash without understanding, or essentially caring, anything about what international culture actually implies, especially when the spotlight is turned on their own culturally confused and corrupted society.


    Anonymous says

    This is why I pray to God that I am a Free White American in America, where I can get as much porn as I want when I want and how I want it. Anytime I get an urge to see women having sex with a horse or a snake or women having sex with 500 men in an hour or 7 year old women having sex with teen all I have to do is google it and I get it. The Cambodians don't know what they are missing, we have the best porn in the world. Our White American culture is better than their culture.


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