A Tokyo court upheld a 2016 ruling fining artist Megumi Igarashi 400,000 yen (USD $3,500) for distributing obscene material related to her “vagina art”.

On 9 May 2016, a Tokyo district court found the Japanese artist Rokudenashiko (real name: Megumi Igarashi) guilty of breaking the country’s obscenity laws because she produced a kayak modelled on her vagina, reported The Guardian and BBC. She was fined 400,000 yen (US$3,700). In court appearances, Igarashi insisted her …

“Is Japan a nation of free speech? How much freedom of expression do people enjoy in this country?” asks Reiji Yoshida and Kazuaki Nagata in an article in The Japan Times about an ‘Exhibition of Unfreedom of Expression’ which is on display in a small gallery in Tokyo until 1 …

                    When Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi began to make plaster casts of her genitalia and show them in exhibitions, she accepted some people might be upset. But she could not have imagined she would end up in prison. Megumi Igarashi has …

42-year-old sculptor and illustrator Megumi Igarashi has been released after spending a week in jail for distributing digital data that made it possible to recreate her genitals with a 3D printer, a possible violation of the Japanese law banning the distribution of “obscene” material, the Kyodo news agency reported Saturday. Megumi …

Japan’s film censorship body, Eirin, has labeled French film My Little Princess as ‘Inapplicable for Classification’. Even though Eirin calls its classification system ‘voluntary’, its refusal to give the film a rating certificate is the equivalent of banning it from a regular theatrical release. According to the Code of the …

Japan’s biggest slum is visible just blocks from bustling restaurants and shops in Osaka, the country’s second-largest city. But it cannot be found on official maps. Nor did it appear in the recent Osaka Asian Film Festival, after the director of a new movie that is set in the area …

Newsletter from Article 19, published on article19.org on 21 October 2013: Art, in any form, constitutes a key medium through which information and ideas are imparted and received. Artist Alert, launched by ARTICLE 19 in 2008, highlights cases of artists around the world whose right to freedom of expression has …

At the last minute the Japanese camera manufacturer Nikon wanted to cancel a photo exhibition which was to be held in Tokyo from 26 June to 9 July 2012 at the Shinjuku Nikon Salon by the South Korean photographer Ahn Sehong. Nikon reportedly received a large number of complaints against …

1934. China. Li Jinhui Shanghai-based composer and songwriter Li Jinhui was banned (if only ineffectually) by the ruling Nationalist Party, and repeatedly came under attack from the socialist left because of the association of his music with the colonial, petit-bourgeois culture of urban Shanghai. Li Jinhui had been experimenting with …