What is the penalty for the crime of violating decency and modesty in the Information Crimes Act?

Damascus-SANA

The crimes of infringing on decency and modesty are among the most prominent information crimes that a number of Internet users are exposed to by those who intend to harass their victims with threatening messages, whether via e-mail or social networking sites, believing that they are hiding from the punishment imposed by the law to combat this crime and regulate freedoms in the virtual world.

In a statement to SANA, the investigating judge of information crimes in Damascus, “Zaman Abdullah,” stated that the violation of modesty and decency is among the 21 crimes identified by Law No. In this law, it has multiple forms, including crimes of impersonation of personal accounts, violation of privacy, crimes of electronic defamation, and others.

Regarding the legal article related to this type of crime, the judge explained that the first part of it relates to the treatment of still or moving visual images, audio and written conversations, such as someone cutting someone’s body in a manner that is contrary to decency and modesty, and instead of it a picture of a person’s head, so that the image becomes inconsistent For decency and modesty, or for a person to create two Facebook pages, one in his name and the other fake, and conduct conversations between the two pages in which there is a violation of modesty or decency in order to threaten, extort, or demand sums of money.

Abdullah indicated that whoever sends these photos to the same person or to others or threatens to publish them through the network shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to one year and a fine of one to two million Syrian pounds, and the penalty is increased to imprisonment from one to two years and a fine of 2 to 3. Millions of Syrian pounds if the perpetrator publishes it on the network.

The material element of this crime, according to Abdullah, is represented by the perpetrator processing a still or moving image “video”, conversation or audio recording belonging to a person through modification, cutting or distortion using one of the means of information technology or an image processing program such as “Photoshop” to become contrary to morals. publicity, decency, or modesty, and then send it to the victim or others using one of the information technology means, or threaten to publish it on the network.

As for the second part of the article, it stipulates that whoever threatens to publish or publish on the network still or moving pictures, conversations, or audio recordings that violate the decency or modesty of a person, shall be punished with imprisonment from two to three years and a fine of 3 to 4 million Syrian pounds, even if that happens. With his consent, the penalty is increased to temporary imprisonment from five to seven years and a fine of 4 to 5 million Syrian pounds if the offense is committed against a minor.

One of the forms of electronic extortion also, according to Abdullah, is through threatening to publish on the network still or animated images, conversations, or audio recordings that were recorded for their original owner using one of the information technology means, which is contrary to public morals, decency, or modesty, even if they were obtained with his consent. The criminal committed one of the following acts: “threatened to publish it on the network or published it on the network.”

Among the forms of this crime is when a person obtains pictures that are contrary to decency or modesty of a person through the network, even if he obtains them with his consent, and begins to threaten the original owner to pay a sum of money so that he does not publish them on the network, and the penalty is increased if the crime is committed against a minor to protect privacy and dignity.

According to Abdullah, the reason behind such a crime may be emotional motives, with the person’s desire to establish an emotional relationship with the victim, and the desire to take revenge on her, for many reasons, such as the victim being a “former fiancé” or a person who rejected the harasser, and other reasons that push him to take revenge on the victim.

Abdullah indicated that there are sometimes material motives for this type of crime that pushes the harasser to follow the method of harassment with the victim and threaten her in order to pay him money, or because of the presence of psychological disorders from which the harasser suffers.

And about the ways to prevent these crimes, Abdullah explained that they are represented in paying attention and protecting the technology devices that the person owns, dealing properly with social media, paying attention to children when they use them, and not being drawn into fake pages that may provide job opportunities and other suspicious pages and accounts that are abundant. In the virtual world, and reporting on it, in addition to the necessity for each of the educational, cultural and media institutions, and civil associations to take an active role in educating individuals about the virtual and technological world and its dangers.

The number of cases registered for information crimes last year, according to Abdullah, amounted to about 300 cases, crimes of violating modesty and decency occupied more than 30 percent of them.

Bushra Barhoum

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