While party leader Rick Falkvinge wants to be clear that the Pirate Party does not want to legalize child pornography or its handling, he believes prosecuting people for drawings they view or posses is inappropriate.
"It is a restriction on freedom of information to forbid anyone to have — just possess — pictures, text, sound and so on," Falkvinge stated. "In an open society you can not forbid someone from drawing their fantasies."
"That is our main point in the issue," Falkvinge added. "We can not have thought crimes in Swedish law."
For its part, the Pirate Party favors law enforcement efforts targeting commercial child pornography operators.
"The current law is wasting resources chasing pretend criminals and should be focusing on real child pornography, with real children involved, not manga comics, holiday pictures and so on," Pirate Party vice-chairperson Anna Troberg stated. "We in fact want to go further to tackle the spread of child pornography and propose the closure of offending websites with the help of economic crime legislation."
Formed in 2006, the Pirate Party focuses on copyright, patent and privacy reform, winning two seats in the European Parliament during the 2009 elections.