Save Our Hardcore-Hentai!

[truehentai]

Sign the petition now!

Help with the petition text! (was originally on the second page) We may still have minor fixes.
We also need someone with good Japanese to translate it!
thedarkangel is maintaining a pdf version of the petition text for paper mails.

There's also a similar petition, a joint letter by Dan Kanemitsu, that you can support as well!

See also Yestofreedom.org thread - Document on eroge

Shiranaihito has written a letter to UN CEDAW Comittee (you should read his note as well)

Petition Against the Persecution of Japanese Erotic Arts

We ask that the government of Japan rejects any new legislation which bans or regulates the production, sale or possession of erotic artwork.

The American feminist group "Equality Now" has started a campaign against the freedom of content in fictitious depictions in Japanese adult games, to include games produced only for sale on Japanese soil and games produced for offshore distribution as well [1].

The claim is that these fictitious depictions violate the terms of CEDAW, which require Japan "to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women." [2] Also involved is Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution, which guarantees equality under the law and states that there shall be no "discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin." [2]

It is unclear, however, how in their claims they relate and conclude that the production of games fictitiously depicting hardcore genres of eroge, which may involve raping a woman or a man, actually violate these laws. It behooves us to remind the public and government that depiction and actual acts differ both vastly and deeply, similar to the ways thinking of something and actually doing it differ from each other. In addition, there was no attempt to show a correlation between the mentioned eroge genre "rape" and actual crime rates. We would like to point out the _fact_ that the rape crime rate of Japan is among the lowest worldwide. [3] And also, during the whole period, no evidence, scientific or otherwise, to support their claims has ever been presented.

Therefore, the accusing organization has yet to form a solid connection between the content of these games and the laws they are invoking.

However, even with such vague arguments, a provocative pressure has emerged in Japanese media, and now adult game producers are facing potential changes in laws in Japan regarding adult games, which would force them to exclude a large variety of eroge genres as taboo. This in turn is a clear violation of Freedom of Speech, which is declared under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19.

Considering the recent history of events [1], it is possible to think that the underlying motivation of mentioned American feminist group is mere conjecture on the part of the group regarding the evolution of Japanese social structure over time, and its implications as a result of interaction with other countries, including the United States and the United Nations. The aforementioned group is well-known from their past activities to be against a large number of sexual fetishes as well as women being portrayed within pornography in general, regardless of a consensual agreement, and pushing instead for their choice of the ideal image of women they would like to see _everywhere_ [4], which would make this social interaction a threat in their eyes. As an extension to this, we believe that underlying motivation of the group is questionable, that is to say, this might be an attempt to _use_ United Nations' regulations and laws of Japan to bend future works by Japanese adult game manufacturers to their own will in order to impose their personal ethical/social values and expectations in Japan, which are not necessarily compatible with the views of the Japanese people.

Their direct demand of the Japanese government to impose various bans and regulations within Japan, and failure to mention possible regulations of games for overseas supports these arguments, whereas their focus on the depiction of the abuse of women and failure to mention the depiction of the physical abuse of males while arriving at generalized conclusions in their advertised sample letter to government officials [2] leaves their sincerity of their concerns about the CEDAW term they invoke, which focuses on both sexes on equal footing, in question.

Also, if this campaign, which is without a solid legal basis, spearheaded by Equality Now succeeds (considering their perspective and expectations as a group), it is likely that they will use this one event as a basis to induce further and more harsh regulations in Japan based extensively upon their will to shape the whole world in accordance with their personal views, and to inflict their personal justice by means of manipulating the executives via amorphous philosophical arguments and bending the actual laws in the near future.

We finally would like to point out that many of the adult games in question are made only for distribution in Japan and are not permitted by their manufacturers to be sold in foreign countries. Therefore, a foreign organization such as Equality Now should not have the right to dictate the content of such materials, since the Japanese government, people and corporations have the right to manage their own sovereign affairs.

In light of all these, we hereby request from Japanese government to cease caving to the pressure initiated by Equality Now without solid legal or moral foundations, and of the EOCS to stand on their principles and protect adult game producers in this matter.

Modifications/additions/suggestions guys! Come on!
This is my first time of an attempt to write a legalese, I'm an engineer not lawyer. I hope someone who's familiar with the jargon comes up soon.
I should also point out that English is not my mother language, so it may need grammatical/structural corrections as well.
We are also allowed to attach a list of URLs, I'm thinking of adding one from Sankaku Complex, one from Canned Dogs, and from Equality Now's site and one from Wikipedia (Freedom of Speech)
And this one: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/crime/eighthsurvey/8sv.pdf
Also required is a petition title and a short (25 words max) petition description.



(my original first post begins here )


I've been reading the stuff going on, primary on Canned Dogs, and we have several debates on the topic around.

Various eroge producers who are facing this thread have disabled foreign access to their websites as a reaction to hentai censorship. You should read the notice minori's homepage

However, I think threat big for us too! To my surprise, nowhere on the net was I able to find a protest campaign against this ban, led by Equality Now. At least in any site in English. These guys actually need our help.

I personally took Minori's advice and sent my complain to officials . I think you guys should do as well.

The so-called Equality Now is pretty active in putting pressure, just check out their campaign page. If you check out that page, you'll see template letters they prepared for their supporters to send to Illusion, Amazon and worst, Japanese officials Obviously, they are able to put pressure on them.

I think we should start a campaign as well. I'm no good with legalese or such stuff so I can't write a good "template mail" to send Japanese officials, but well, I did my call. Hopefully, someone here might prepare a good template for us all.

From what I see from Sankaku Complex's summary of events, I don't think that Equality Now has a strong legal basis. The legal arugment they're invoking is

Japan has an obligation under Article 5(a) of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) “to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.”

which is quite a vague statement. However, I don't think it's that vague to conclude that these fictional depictions are "social and cultural pattern of conduct of men and women" or "discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin"

they're just taking the advantage of common taboos and gathering a herd to bend Japan to their will (see Sankaku's website for reference links):

An Irish rag on a slow news day picks up the story that importers have been selling Rapelay via Amazon. The theme is that the game encourages rape and is child pornography.

Amazon completely drops the product, including in Japan. Other retailers soon follow suit.

Feminist busybody group “Equality Now”, which organises spam campaigns to keep its members busy without actually having to deal with problems directly, targets the game, accusing it of human rights violations and telling the Japanese government it should be banning this sort of thing, like low crime paradises such as the UK.

The developers tell the foreign feminists to get lost.

Soon after the Rapelay developers cave in and completely remove the game from distribution.

Equality Now’s Japanese lawyer (the group has no presence in Japan) drums up anti-eroge media attention.

A Japanese diet member, an avowed feminist, picks up on the scandal and starts calling for a ban. Objections start with the opposition and minor parties and soon the ruling party jumps onto the bandwagon.

A “study group” is organised to decide how best to ban the games.

Broadcaster TBS falsely reports that the EOCS has banned the games.

The EOCS bans the games.

At no point at any time has any evidence that such games (which amount to illustrated novels) contribute to sexual assault been presented.

I'd like to point out that if they're actually standing on principle, whole gaming world 90% should face their doom, for almost all games depict some sort of violence (which is regulated by similar rules, under human rights), both against men and women, and no one is trying to censor them --where's Equality Now?
Mind you that such games are labeled as such, and are not forced to remove their contents.
Nor there is such big fuss about Japanese AVs or even US' own extreme stuff. And thing is, they are yet to form a solid connection between fictional depictions and the legal terms they are invoking, which is not equal to manipulative protesting voice of a group of feminsts, or zillions of copy-paste mails.

There's a lot of hyporicsy going around in this business, so please, even if you're not into the hardcore stuff, stand on principle and write to Japanese government. Or do something.

[susume]

This link was posted in another thread here at HF though I did not see it in this one.
They also have letters in the works as well
http://www.yestofreedom.org/

[Shiranaihito]

@Susume: Yes, I've seen that group. There's a link to them in the first post. They seem like great allies. I will see if I can get their support, or at least let them know of our efforts.

I feel our e-mail campaign is ready to go at this point. If nobody has any further comments about it, we will start tomorrow.

[Sutorippu]

Arrr! Full speed ahead! Man the cannons, hoist the colors, and prepare to board!

... That's the beer talking.

[Shiranaihito]

Here it is: Your way to fight back against Equality Now. Tell their corporate sponsors just how irresponsible Equality Now has acted in their campaign against hentai.

Here is the e-mail form letter you can send to those sponsors:

Spoiler

You are receiving this letter because your organization has in the past made donations to "Equality Now", an equal gender-rights activist group. I believe it is your right to know the truth about what Equality Now has been doing with your generous contributions. While they have done several noteworthy things in the fight for women's rights in the past, Equality Now is now engaged in a misguided campaign which will only punish innocent people and do nothing to further the cause of equal rights.

Equality Now is currently working on a campaign in Japan to eliminate the sale and production of Japanese erotic video games. They claim that these video games promote violence against women and therefore should not be allowed to exist. Equality Now has harassed the game production companies in Japan to cease production of erotic video games since they contain fictional depictions of sexual assault. They have also been pressuring the government of Japan to pass laws which would ban these games entirely.

Despite the fact that these games have been popular in Japan for many years, Equality Now only recently learned of them because it was featured in a British newspaper. Equality Now did not start this campaign based on any actual incidents of gender discrimination. Rather, they decided that discrimination against women exists in Japan only after learning about their erotic video games through a newspaper article. As a result of this decision, Equality Now is pressuring the government of Japan to pass laws which would ban these games. These laws would violate Japan's constitutional Freedom of Speech, just the same as banning a book would do.

Equality Now claims that the purpose of this campaign is to "eliminate discrimination against women". However, they have made several factual errors and omissions in their claims about the situation. Here is the truth that Equality Now does not want you to know:

-In their campaign, Equality Now cites only a single erotic video game which contains
fictional depictions of sexual assault against women. They use this one example as a
reason for the protest of all Japanese erotic video games. However, the truth is that
this type of game represents only a small percentage of all Japanese erotic video games.
The vast majority of these games contain only depictions of consensual sex between
adults and are no different than what you would find in a typical romance novel.

-Equality Now claims that these erotic games promote violence against women. This is
mere speculation that has never been proven. No study or research has ever been
conducted which can show any correlation between fictional depictions of sexual assault
and actual incidents of such. Most people would also agree that works of fiction do not
promote the real-life performance of the acts they portray. An erotic video game does
not promote violence against women any more than a violent video game promotes murder,
or an auto-racing game promotes reckless driving.

-The nation of Japan is actually one of the safest places in the world for women to live.
Their per-capita rate of sexual assault (as well as other crimes) is one of the very
lowest in the world. (Reference: Eighth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and
Operations of Criminal Justice Systems.) In addition, women in Japan have all the same
legal, social and financial rights as men. Incidents of gender discrimination in Japan
are few and far between. A group such as Equality Now ought to turn their attention to
other countries where women are not so fortunate.

-Some of Japan's erotic video games and related materials depict women sexually abusing
men, which makes any claims of gender inequality untrue. Equality Now has been silent
about this fact in an attempt to make all of these games appear biased against women.

-There are several American and European software makers which have created video games
which depict acts of violence against women. However, unlike the Japanese erotic video
game makers, these Western companies have the financial resources to defend themselves
legally. This is the only reason why Equality Now is avoiding a confrontation about
Western video games in favor of an easier target.

-Fictional depictions of violence against women exist now and have always existed in many
forms of media, such as books, movies and internet websites. Such violent depictions
have also existed for centuries in various religious and mythological texts. But even
the most violent of Japan's erotic video games are no different than what is found in
these other media. This begs the question of why Equality Now isn't doing anything about
these other forms of media yet chooses to focus only on a certain video game.

-It should also be noted that fictional depictions of violence against men, children, and
even animals also exist in these forms of media, and that Equality Now's stance on
singling out the scenes of violence against women and girls is clear favoritism and shows
exactly how flawed their agenda is. This can only lead one to question Equality Now's
claims of fighting for "equal" gender rights.

-The new laws which Equality Now wants to be passed in Japan are very unpopular with the
Japanese people. These laws are very strict and would only serve to punish innocent
people and legitimate businesses, without doing anything to help actual women in need.
Japan's parliament has already discussed these proposed laws and has for now decided
against passing them. Equality Now is being silent about this fact as they continue to
urge its members to keep up this campaign.

-Equality Now claims to be the victim of an "unprecedented" amount of hate-mail as a
response to this campaign. What they have actually received is mass protest from both
erotic video game fans around the world and from people who are concerned about an
unfair attack on people's Freedom of Speech. So many people all over the world, both men
and women, know that Equality Now is wrong in this campaign and have tried to convince
them of such, yet Equality Now just dismisses all this as "hate-mail". This fact shows
just how stubborn and ignorant Equality Now has become.

Equality Now could be focusing on many more important women's rights causes than an alleged societal effect of Japanese erotic video games. For example:

-In the U.S. states of Texas and Rhode Island, underage girls were allowed to work at
strip clubs simply because there were no laws in place against it.

-In Iran, prison guards allegedly raped virgin female prisoners before their execution
because Islamic law prohibits executing virgin women.

-Child pornography is still legal in Russia, where young girls are forced into sexual
acts for making such materials.

These are just a few of the actual women's rights violations that Equality Now seems to be ignoring in favor of their misguided campaign against a work of fiction in a country with excellent gender equality. Instead of focusing on their other, more worthy campaigns of fighting for women's rights, Equality Now has exhausted much of their resources fighting against a work of fiction which has not been shown to cause any actual incidents of violence or gender discrimination. Instead of dealing with real issues of women's rights, Equality Now is merely looking for a scapegoat as an easy target in order to claim they are doing something useful.

Please ask yourself whether this is the way you want your generous donations to be used.

Before you decide to make any more contributions to Equality Now, I urge you to ask them the following questions:

1. What steps has Equality Now taken to stand up against American/European video games which
depict acts of violence against women?

2. Besides reading newspapers, what methods does Equality Now use to monitor the equal rights
conditions in countries around the world?

3. In terms of their claims of fighting for "equal" rights, what has Equality Now done to
stand up against video games which depict women committing acts of violence against men?

4. What kind of research is Equality Now required to do of any given situation to determine
whether gender discrimination is actually present in that situation?

5. What does Equality Now consider to be acceptable criteria for urging the passage of laws
which violate individuals' Freedom of Speech?

6. What actions has Equality Now taken to change the way women are portrayed in pornographic
movies, magazines and websites?

7. What has Equality Now done to prevent the publishing of movies or books which contain
fictional accounts of violence against women?

8. Upon what criteria does Equality Now prioritize its various campaigns?

Until Equality Now provides satisfactory answers to each of these questions, and explains exactly how persecuting works of fiction will eliminate gender discrimination in a country that practically has none, I urge your organization not to make any further contributions to Equality Now.

Here is the list of their corporate sponsors which can be contacted by e-mail:

A. G. Foundation: foundation@fb.org
Carlson Family Foundation: david.nelson@carlson.com
Comic Relief: complaints@comicrelief.com
Done the Impossible, LLC: brian@donetheimpossible.com
Hunt Alternatives Fund: information@huntalternatives.org
Lifetime Entertainment: Wong@lifetimetv.com
New Field Foundation: info@newfieldfound.org
New York Community Trust: info@nyct-cfi.org
New York Women’s Foundation: info@nywf.org
NoVo Foundation: info@novofoundation.org
Justice Initiative: info@justiceinitiative.org
Moriah Fund: info@moriahfund.org
Oak Foundation: info@oakfnd.ch
Patrick & Aimee Butler Foundation: kerrieb@butlerfamilyfoundation.org
Sigrid Rausing Trust: info@srtrust.org
Tides Foundation: info@tides.org
Women Donors Network: (web page only) http://womendonors.org/contact
Women’s Foundation of Colorado: wfco@wfco.org
Working Assets: info@credoaction.com
***New for 2008***
Eileen Fisher, Inc.: ahall@eileenfisher.com
Flora Family Foundation: info@florafamily.org
NEPAD: (web page only) http://www.nepad.org/feedback/lang/en
NIKE Foundation: NIKE.FOUNDATION@NIKE.COM
The Global Hunger Project: info@thp.org

And these sponsors can only be contaced by paper mail, for those of you willing to mail a few envelopes:

Spoiler

Banky Larocque Foundation
Address: 5332 HARBOR ST
COMMERCE, CA 90040-3927

Shana Alexander Charitable Foundation
50 MONTROSE RD
YONKERS, NY 10710-2802

Frances And Benjamin Benenson Foundation Inc
708 THIRD AVE 28TH FLR
NEW YORK, NY 10017-4201

Bydale Foundation
Contact: FRANK J KICK
Address: PO BOX 72
HARRIMAN, NY 10926-0072

Dreitzer Foundation Inc
Contact: SEGET
Address: 330 MADISON AVE
NEW YORK, NY 10017-5001
*Same address as Ruth Turner Fund

The Nararo Foundation
Contact: THOMAS I WHITMAN
Address: 720 WESTVIEW ST
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19119-3532

Pond Foundation
Address: 1447 SEVILLE RD
SANTA FE, NM 87505-4647

Bonnie And Jamie Schaefer Family Foundation, Inc
225 Ne Mizner Blvd # 300
Boca Raton, FL 33432

Silver Mountain Foundation for the Arts
PO Box 1913
Morristown, NJ 07962
*This one was founded by actress Meryl Streep, who is a member of EN's advisory board.

Third Point Foundation
c/o DANIEL S LOEB
390 PARK AVE FL 18
NEW YORK NY 10022-4608

RUTH TURNER FUND INC
330 MADISON AVE STE 3500
NEW YORK, NY 10017-5001
*Same address as Dreitzer Foundation

Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Foundation
767 3rd Avenue
36th Floor
New York NY 10017

Rowland & Sylvia Shaefer Family Foundation Inc
Contact: ROWLAND SCHAEFER
PO BOX 9312
MIAMI, FL 33014-9312

***New for 2008***
Giorgio Armani Corporation
114 Fifth Ave., 17th Fl.
New York, NY 10011

Harold Simmons Foundation Inc.
5430 LBJ Fwy Ste 10700
Dallas, TX 75240-2601

Malcolm Gibbs Foundation
14 E 60th St Ste 702
New York, NY 10022-1006

The Agnes Gund Foundation
517 Broadway, Third Floor
East Liverpool, OH 43920-3167

All you need to do are three easy steps:
1. COPY the text of the letter from the spoiler above, or from the .TXT file attachment below.
2. PASTE the text of the letter into an e-mail document (or the appropriate web page). Feel free to add your own comments but please keep it tasteful. Or write your own letter about why they should not continue to fund Equality Now. It's your choice. As for the subject line, you can put something like "Stop funding Equality Now" or whatever you want.
3. SEND the letter to each of the e-mail addresses above. You can also print the letter and mail it to each of the above mailing addresses as well.

Remember, Equality Now cannot operate its campaigns without the financial support of these sponsors. If we can convince just one sponsor to stop giving money, it will be a huge blow to Equality Now. They did not expect all the "hate mail" we gave them, and I'm sure they didn't expect us to go after their precious source of funding. This is sure to make them feel some serious pain and fear. The fear of losing money may itself be enough to make Equality Now back down, but nothing will happen unless ALL of us participate.

We need EVERYONE to send those letters. This is your chance to do something for the future of hentai. I have put the sword in your hands. All you have to do now is take a swing at those bastards who think you shouldn't enjoy hentai.

Or would you rather do nothing and let the feminazis win? It's your choice.

[thinkingofaname]

will do, thanks

[DarkKnightEX]

very nice, will do my part

[jeresh2387]

i'd be happy to do that

[Shiranaihito]

First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone who took part in our e-mail campaign to Equality Now's sponsors. It feels good to fight back, doesn't it?

What we ought to do now is try to advertise a bit. Let more people know that they can participate in this effort. Hongfire is just one group of hentai fans. There are many other anime groups out there who share our same goals and I'm sure they'd love the chance to take a shot at EN. Maybe some of you out there are members of these other websites or know how to contact these other groups. So for those of you who can, please contact these other anime forums and let them know about this. Post this link wherever you can:
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1967934&postcount=115

[Hell Jirachi]

I've already posted the petition and this topic at my sites chat box and asked a friend to post it at his site so hopefully someone will take notice and will want to join in.

[EchelonV]

I don't want to derail this at all and don't have anything to contribute, but I'd just like to give you all a big thanks for everything going on here!