The Porn Vigilantes of South Korea: A Reign of Terror Against Sex?

Almost 800 volunteers are assisting the South Korean government's crackdown on internet pornography by browsing sites and flagging them for inappropriate content.

"Nuri Corps", which roughly translates to Net Cops, is a volunteer group that has already assisted in the arrest of 6,400 people accused of producing and selling pornography online. Pornography is illegal in South Korea.

Moon Tae-Hwa, a devout Christian and member of Nuri Corps told the Associated Press that "I feel like I'm cleaning up dirty things. It's like shoveling snow in a blizzard."

Sex crime in South Korea has risen dramatically over the past 10 years, with state-operated Korean Institute of Criminology reporting that 18,000 rapes were reported in 2010 as opposed to 7,000 in the year 2000.

In September 2012, President Lee Myung-bak said: "Obscene materials and harmful information that can be easily accessed on the Internet are singled out as one cause inciting sex crimes" with senior police officer Lee Byeong-gui concluding that the role of the Nuri Corps is "very important."

However, critics of South Korea's stance on internet pornography have said there is no correlation between people's exposure to online porn and sex crime.

"It's a reign of terror against sex," says Ma Kwang Soo, a Korean literature professor at Seoul's Yonsei University. "No country in the world has ever reported that banning porn results in a drop in sex crimes."

There has also been criticism of South Korea's stance on child pornography. Although child pornography is banned in almost every country, in South Korea, people in possession of child porn face a maximum prison sentence of only one year. Until recently, downloading child pornography was punishable by a fine of around twenty million won (£11,500).

The National Assembly recently raised the maximum prison sentence for people who sell child pornography from seven years to 10 years.

Police in South Korea say they have closed down 37 websites after reports from the Nuri Corps, and that a further 134 are under investigation.