This is a proposal for a law submitted by AKEL – What MP Giorgos Koukoumas said
Continued on Wednesday in the Parliamentary Committee on Law, Justice and Public Order the debate on legislation to criminalize the non-consensual use of personal images of erotic and/or sexual content, so-called “revenge pornography”.
After the end of the Committee's session, AKEL Member of Parliament, Giorgos Koukoumas, stated that the article-by-article discussion of AKEL's law proposal for the establishment of a separate and stricter legislation for the phenomenon that came to be known as “revenge pornography” has begun today » which is the phenomenon in which women are usually victims – but not only women – and in which material, photos, videos of sexual content are made public or disseminated, without their consent.
Mr. Koukoumas explained that this is a crime, a practice that has devastating, moral, personal, professional and psychological consequences for the victim and it is not unfair that this crime is characterized as “cyberrape”.
At the same time, he expressed his satisfaction as, as he said, from the side of the Ministry of Justice and Public Order, and from the side of the All Cyprus Bar Association and from the Legal Service, but also from all the bodies that had participated in previous meetings “expressed agreement on the philosophy and orientation” of AKEL's law proposal.
“Let me say that the law proposal we are submitting drastically strengthens the current framework so as to strengthen the legal obligation of online service providers to immediately remove such material from their websites,” said Mr. Koukoumas.
He explained that there is another differentiation so that proof of intent to impersonate the victim on the part of the perpetrator is not required which, as he stated, is very important because in most cases the perpetrators said that “I did it as a joke, to take revenge or something like that”.
He also noted that the proposed law provides for the protection of all victims, regardless of gender. He also said that cases where the material is not real but has been digitally processed or constructed in such a way that a person is realistically portrayed as starring in or participating in such an act should certainly be covered.
