Brazil Debates "Offensive" Games Ban

A bill has been set in front of Brazilian legislators that would make the importing, distribution, or production of "offensive" games illegal and punishable by a prison sentence.

Brazil has banned games before - Counter-Strike, EverQuest, and Bully, to name a few - but now a senator has introduced a bill that would impose a blanket ban on any game deemed "offensive." According to Brazilian news site UOL, Senator Valdir Raupp's bill (a translation of which can be read here) has been approved by the Senate's Education Commission, and will now be forwarded to the Committee on Constitution and Justice for a vote.

The bill seeks to "curb the manufacture, distribution, importation, distribution, trading and custody, storage, the video games that affect the customs, traditions of the people, their worship, creeds, religions and symbols," with particular attention given to how games treat Christianity - or at least, that's how this slightly-garbled translation reads:

"About Christianity, it is seen in some games someone beat angels while listening to a choir Catholic. It is a common supergroup flapping by hell before the final battle, or even beat Jesus and his twelve apostles,
although they have funny names."

Clearly, Raupp has been playing entirely too much Xenosaga. His bill would make any such "discrimination" a crime, and would carry a penalty of a prison sentence of one to three years. We'll cross our fingers for our Brazilian readers, because this world has enough iron-fisted censorship schemes - we don't need any more.

(Via GamePolitics)