Denmark Abolishes Censorship

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32050, 26 July 1969, Page 7

Denmark Abolishes Censorship

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copvrifiht)

COPENHAGEN.

The shifty street-cor-ner seller of dirty postcards has no place in Denmark. The sale of these pictures is now fully legal and they are freely available at almost every news-stand in the country.

Theatre censorship went In 1953. Printed pornography was legalised in June, 1967, and on July 1 Denmark became the first country in the world to abolish film censorship for adults, and prohibitions against pictorial pornography. Films for showing to children of 16 and under will still be controlled by a censorship board. It will be an offence to sell pornographic pictures to children, punishable by a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment Few Objections

A minimum of fuss and controversy has attended the liberalisation moves. The Folketing (Parliament) approved the amending law allowing pornographic pictures to be freely sold by 112 votes to 25.

Very few members of the general public have voiced objections, and in Denmark’s permissive society this was not regarded as surprising. The approach to sexual matters in this Scandinavian country has for long been easy-going. For centuries it has been customary among ordinary people for couples to sleep together before thinking of marriage. Mr Erik Manniche, a sociologist, says sexual mores in Denmark have remained “amazingly constant for at least 300 years.” The immediate roots of the recent moves to end censorship, however, lie elsewhere —-partly in the literary battie to win greater freedom to publish, and partly in a general concern to widen the boundaries of individual freedom. “Fanny HUI” Ruling The literary battle was won when the High Court ruled in 1966 that “Fanny Hill,” the memoirs of an eighteenthcentury British girl who became a prostitute, could be published. After this ruling, a commission of jurists reported, in effect, that if “Fanny Hill” could be published then the logical conclusion was that no book should be banned. About the same time, the psychiatrists of the State

Medico-legal Council reported that they could find no evidence that pornography was harmful or likely to have an adverse effect on sex crime rates. Fewer Offences

So far the psychiatrists’ conclusions have been borne out. In the first six months after the “Fanny Hill” ruling sex crimes reported in Copenhagen fell by 25 per cent, and in 1968 there was a further 9 per cent fall. The psychiatrists’ conclusions opened the way for the argument that "it is not the business of the state to decide what its citizens should

read or view,” as Mr Knud Thestrup, the Minister of Justice, has put it In practice, the July I law will not mean much. Pictorial pornography has been freely available for a long time, and Mr Thestrup expects that sales will in fact decline sharply in future. Demand Drops A boom in written pornography in 1967 was followed soon afterwards by a slump which left publishers with large unsold stocks. A similar pattern is now expected in the pornographic picture trade.

But there is a difference.

There is a big export market for pictures, probably worth 56 million kroner (more than $6 million) a year to Danish publishers, which may help to sustain the domestic market as well.

Meanwhile, Copenhagen is expected to become a much cleaner place as the lurid shop window displays of pornography are ended. The new law on pictorial pornography was accompanied by a strengthening of police by-laws on the public display of "pictures offensive to public decency.”

“The public should also be free not to see this filth,” said Mr Thestrup.