The regulations make it illegal to possess images – even if they are staged – of non-consensual sexual activity or acts that could result in “severe injury”. Photo: Shutterstock

The government’s proposed law on ‘extreme pornography’ risks criminalising sexual minorities and make it illegal for adults to watch depictions of legal sex acts, activists have warned.

“We know of people being convicted for material related to BDSM [bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism], especially sado-masochism,” said Nick Cowen, a policy researcher at British pressure group Backlash.

“Bondage on its own does not seem to be commonly prosecuted. Given the popularity of Fifty Shades of Gray, that would imply there were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of offenders.”

Backlash was created in 2005 to oppose the UK law on extreme pornography, on which Malta’s proposed ‘Extreme Pornographic Images Regulations’ are explicitly modelled.

Malta’s proposed regulations form part of Bill 113, which has been highly publicised as removing blasphemy and artistic censorship laws and allowing for the opening of sex shops.

The extreme pornography regulations have the stated aim of criminalising pornography depicting bestiality or necrophilia.

However, they also make it illegal to possess images which portray non-consensual sexual activity or acts that could result in “severe injury”, even if the images are staged and all the participants are consenting adults.

Anyone convicted under the new law will be liable to up to three years in prison or a fine of up to €6,000.

A justice ministry spokeswoman confirmed that the fact that an image is acted did not exclude it from the regulations, “as long as it is explicit and realistic and does not fall within the exceptions – the most notable of which being those relating to genuine artistic expression.”

Mr Cowen said there was a wide range of material that could be covered by the law’s language, but that it was unclear whether or how it could be used by prosecutors.

People face a lot of uncertainty as to what is illegal and what isn’t

“This means people face a lot of uncertainty as to what is illegal and what isn’t, which is potentially very damaging to the rule of law.”

Apart from staged depictions of bondage or rape, Mr Cowen said the law had also been used to target “anal penetration with fingers or hands”, which disproportionately impacted lesbians and gays.

“It can harm anyone experimenting with alternative sexual acts that can be as safe (or safer) than intercourse,” he said.

“While we assumed that BDSM would be the main target when the law was brought, this was an unexpected result and one we fear sets LGBT rights back.”

According to Mr Cowen, people in the UK were usually charged for material found on their computers or phones while they were being searched by police based on other grounds.

Related to this, however, was a drive to restrict the supply of pornography by introducing content blocks and pursuing pornography producers, decisions which could have implications on free speech.

“We find that these regulations are mutually supporting,” Mr Cowen said, adding: “The apparatus of internet regulation can be applied to any material once it has been used successfully on pornography, including political speech.

“So we see this law as part of a much wider attack on freedom of expression and the open society.”