“Revenge pornography” is an independent crime – 8 years in prison and a fine

Independent criminal offense (felony) in the Penal Code establishes the Ministry of Justice for vengeful pornography. As the Minister of Justice, Costas Tsiaras, had promised, after the uproar caused by the case of the TV presenter Stathis Panagiotopoulos, legislative intervention comes to fill a gap in the Codefor an offense extremely prevalent now based on the evolution of technology.

The new layout, according to dikastiko.gr, is incorporated as a last minute addition to the draft law on “Integration of Directive (EU) 2019/713 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the fight against fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment and the replacement of the decision – Council Framework 2001/413 / JHA “and was put to a public consultation which ended on 3 June. The draft with the additions was submitted to the Parliament last Friday.

Changes

Revenge pornography with a special provision for minors and trafficking in a large number of persons, especially in the case of videotaped material between partners or spouses, is now codified from misdemeanor to felony in article 346 of the Penal Code.
vengeful porn

Specifically, the provision states:

Article 346 is added to the PK as follows:

Article 346

Insults of sexual life

Anyone who unjustifiably discloses to a third party or posts in public view, real, distorted or designed image or any kind of visual or audiovisual material, which captures a non-public act of another concerning his sexual life, shall be punished by imprisonment of at least three (3) years. and a fine.

Whoever threatens another to perform the acts of par. 1 is punished with imprisonment of at least one (1) year. If the perpetrator of the act of the previous paragraph forces another to act or omission or tolerance for which he has no obligation, he is punished with imprisonment of at least two (2) years.

The act of par. 1 is punished with imprisonment of up to eight (8) years and a fine if the following is committed:

a) by posting on the internet or on social media with an indefinite number of recipients;

b) by an adult and concerns a minor,

(c) to the detriment of the present or ex-spouse or partner of the offender or to the detriment of a person

resides with him or has a working or service relationship with him or is in custody

or his protection or he can not defend himself,

d) in order for the culprit to offer himself or another property benefit.

If any of the acts of the previous paragraphs led the victim to a suicide attempt, imprisonment and a fine are imposed. “If the act of the previous paragraph led to death, imprisonment of at least ten (10) years and a fine shall be imposed.”

What was going on

Until now, Greek law did not deal with these cases with a specific criminal offense, but they were dealt with under the law on personal data breach, according to which anyone who processes, transmits, announces or makes personal data accessible to unauthorized persons or allows them to be aware of these etc. is punished with imprisonment of up to 5 years and a fine and if it is sensitive personal data, such as someone’s love and sex life, with imprisonment of 1 to 5 years and XP.

This act becomes criminal (imprisonment 5-10 years and XP) if the perpetrator intended to provide for himself or another illegal property gain or to harm a third party. If done through negligence, a prison sentence of up to 3 months and a fine are imposed. Of course, there is always a drastic treatment of the situation through the civil courts (with precautionary measures and lawsuits).
Arios Pagos for vindictive pornography

Arios Pagos, seeing the gap in the law for a long time now, had issued a decision that served as a jurisprudential basis and to prosecute Stathis Panagiotopoulos for a crime.

According to the reasoning of the decision, the moral damage is not subject to a “quantitative criterion”. For this reason, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeals, for referring to criminal offenses in the case of revenge porn and on which the case of the presenter was based. According to the decision, the legal provision for the existence of property benefit from any accused, which leads to a crime, also applies in the case of irreparable moral damage.