'You have to watch it even if you don't want to,' says senior pornography censor in China
A month after Hunan's anti-pornography department busted a provider of indecent videos, provincial television got a rare interview with one of the officials in charge of looking through the seized material.
Liu is a member of the Hunan provincial "eliminate pornography and illegal publications" office. Such departments exist throughout the mainland, and because of their indecorous duties, officials usually keep quiet about their work.
He and three colleagues have the task of looking through the 700 DVDs confiscated in April. They have to do it within a week and then classify them as either "pornographic", "obscene" and "others", he said.
The distinction will help the public prosecution on what charges to press against those arrested in the bust.
"You have to watch even if you don't want to watch," Liu said in the report. "But when you're in this job, you have to watch very closely, and once you've watched, you classify." He could not be reached in his office for comment on Monday.
The requirements for becoming a member of his team do not seem high. One has to be married and to have undergone training, the Hunan news report said, showing an office with a dozen middle-aged men, whose faces had been blurred out.
