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Censored? Japan vagina artist convicted in high-profile obscenity case

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Megumi Igarashi, a Japanese artist, seen in a press conference in Tokyo in 2014 following her release from a police cell after being arrested for obscenity charges in connection with a crowd-funding campaign to make a kayak modeled on her own genitalia. Photo: Kyodo

A Japanese artist who makes objects shaped like her vagina was convicted on Monday after a high-profile obscenity trial, in a decision likely to reignite accusations of heavy-handed censorship.

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The Tokyo District Court slapped Megumi Igarashi with a 400,000 yen (HK$29,000) fine, but the penalty was half what prosecutors had demanded as she was also cleared of one of several charges.

Igarashi was arrested two years ago for trying to raise funds online to pay for the construction of a kayak by disseminating a coded 3D image of her genitals that would allow users to make copies.

While Japan has a multi-billion-dollar pornography industry, actual depictions of genitalia are banned and the artist was charged in July 2014.

Artist says her vagina creations confront a Japanese taboo

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Igarashi who calls herself Rokude Nashiko – slang that loosely translates as “reprobate child” – was released days later following a legal appeal and after thousands of people signed a petition demanding her freedom.

But several months on, Tokyo police arrested her again for distributing “obscene” items – displaying decorated plaster figures moulded in the shape of her genitals and sending and selling CD-ROMs containing the computer code.

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