Protesters are seeking to ban a manga exhibition that is opening this week in a Danish museum due to its depiction of fictional children in a sexual manner.

The gallery opened at Kunsthallen Brandts' media museum in the city of Odense. It contains erotic manga such as Taro Shinonome's Swing Out Sisters, Kondom's Bondage Fairies, and Tuna Empire's The Spirit of Capitalism.

The Danish Psychological Association and members of the Social Democrats party have spoken against the exhibition.

Christian Hviid Mortensen, the curator of Kunsthallen Brandts, said no pictures show explicit sexual acts, and the point of the exhibition was to encourage a debate and question the power of media. I have to admit that I myself was shocked at how extreme this genre is, and how deranged the imaginations are in this universe, Mortensen said according to The Copenhagen Post newspaper: But we're not showing the works for the sake of displaying child pornography. We're looking for a debate on the issue. So if people are offended by it then they should by all means speak out and say so.

Denmark is the only Scandinavian country where sexual depictions of fictional children is permissible, but the Social Democrats proposed a ban in April.

Sweden's Pirate Party leader, Rick Falkvinge has said that child pornography should be allowed in cartoons but this stance has been roundly criticised by the press.

The law should focus on 'real criminals' abusing children, he's quoted as saying, But We want to be extremely clear in that we do not want to legalize any form of the handling of child pornography.

He expressed regret over comments made in an interview with Sveriges Radio's Ekot news programme admitting he expressed himself clumsily.

The debate arose when a man was convicted for the possession of animated comics, Falkvinge says in The Local: In an open society you can not forbid someone from drawing their fantasies. That is our main point in the issue, that we can not have thought crimes in Swedish law.

Meanwhile, Pirate Party vice-chair Anna Troberg says 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. The problem is that they focus on the pictures and not the victims and waste masses of resources, she states.

A Swedish translator of Japanese manga comics has been fined by a Swedish court for possession of drawings depicting children engaged in sexual acts.

The ruling is the first of its kind in Sweden and has sparked a heated censorship debate.

The translator at the centre of the case was found guilty of possessing child pornography after downloading 51 manga images from the internet.

Judge Nils Pålbrant conceded that the decision to fine the translator, though unanimous, had raised a number of thorny issues.

There's a clear conflict between freedom of speech on the one hand and general regulations regarding children's rights on the other, he told local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning: It was however our view that the protective aspect weighed more heavily when taking into account the intentions of the legislator. The aim of the law, as described in the preliminary work that led to its creation, is not just to protect individual children but children in general.

But the case has polarized opinion in Sweden. In an editorial published on Thursday, tabloid Expressen gave its backing to the translator: However unpleasant and nasty a work of fiction might be, and whatever one thinks about Japanese porn involving cartoon children, there is actually no victim here. The children in the Uppland man's manga comics were not molested since they were characters in a comic.

The translator's lawyer, Leif Silbersky, expressed surprise at the June 30th ruling and has lodged a formal appeal on behalf of his client: It goes against all common sense. These are just drawings; no children have been harmed.

Judge Pålbrant said he too would welcome a second opinion from the Court of Appeal due to the precedential nature of the case.