Sedition
[1] Civil seditio became frequent during the political crisis of the first century BCE, as populist politicians sought to check the privileged classes by appealing to public assemblies.
The term sedition in its modern meaning first appeared in the Elizabethan Era (c. 1590) as the "notion of inciting by words or writings disaffection towards the state or constituted authority".
[4] The law developed in the Court of Star Chamber, relying on longstanding scandalum magnatum statutes and a broad repressive act of Mary I against literature that contained "the encouraging, stirring or moving of any insurrection".
In late 2006, the Commonwealth Government, under the Prime-Ministership of John Howard proposed plans to amend Australia's Crimes Act 1914, introducing laws that meant artists and writers may be jailed for up to seven years if their work was considered seditious or inspired sedition either deliberately or accidentally.
He had also brushed aside recommendations to curtail new clauses outlawing "urging conduct" that "assists" an "organization or country engaged in armed hostilities" against the Australian military.
For military personnel, Section 82 of the National Defence Act cites Seditious Offences as advocating governmental change by force, punishable by imprisonment for life or to less.
On 2 August 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the national registration measure introduced by the federal government.
[10] Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition, and then confined without trial in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario and Ripples, New Brunswick until 1944.
In 2003, the Vishva Hindu Parishald (VHP) general secretary, Praveen Togadia, was sought to be charged with sedition for allegedly waging a war against the elected government and taking part in anti-national activity.
On 24 December 2010, the Additional Sessions and District Court Judge B.P Varma Raipur found Binayak Sen, Naxal ideologue Narayan Sanyal and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha, guilty of sedition for helping the Maoists in their fight against the state.
[23] On 13 January 2019, The Delhi Police filed a chargesheet on Monday against former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in a sedition case lodged in 2016.
[25] In September 2018, Divya Spandana, the Congress Social Media chief was booked for sedition for calling Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, a thief.
[27] On February 13, 2020, a sedition case was registered against Disha Ravi a climate activist, by the Delhi Police for allegedly trying to incite perpetuate violence and defame India with regards to her support of the farmers protest.
[33] Sedition as defined under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code has been replaced by Section 147 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita[34] Article 40.6.1° (i) of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland guaranteed the right to freedom of expression, subject to several constraints, among them:[35] The publication or utterance of seditious or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.Advocates for freedom of speech have argued that this constraint ought to be removed;[36][37] any constitutional amendment requires a referendum.
[51] For instance, the future Prime Minister Peter Fraser had been convicted of sedition in his youth for arguing against conscription during World War I, and was imprisoned for a year.
[54] In March 2007, Mark Paul Deason, the manager of a tavern near the University of Otago, was charged with seditious intent[55] although he was later granted diversion when he pleaded guilty to publishing a document which encourages public disorder.
[61] However this proposal was not implemented until 2009, when sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009,[62] with effect from 12 January 2010.
[66] The charge of seditious libel for true statements was weakened, but not abolished, in the 1735 New York case of Crown v. John Peter Zenger.
President John Adams signed into law the Sedition Act of 1798, which set out punishments of up to two years of imprisonment for "opposing or resisting any law of the United States" or writing or publishing "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the President or the U.S. Congress (though not the office of the Vice-President, then occupied by Adams' political opponent Thomas Jefferson).
In the Espionage Act of 1917, Section 3 made it a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000, to willfully spread false news of the United States Army or Navy with an intent to disrupt its operations, to foment mutiny in their ranks, or to obstruct recruiting.
This Act was invoked in three major cases, one of which against the Socialist Worker's Party in Minneapolis in 1941, resulting in 23 convictions, and again in what became known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 in which a number of pro-Nazi figures were indicted but released when the prosecution ended in a mistrial.
On 17 October 1967, two demonstrators, while engaged in a sit-in at the Army Induction Center in Oakland, California, were arrested and charged with sedition by a deputy U.S.
"[68][69] This decision drew the ire of California Senator George Murphy, who would later block Poole's confirmation to a federal judgeship in response.
[75] Some alleged conspirators were serving time for overt acts, such as the crimes committed by The Order - bank robbery and the assassination of Alan Berg.
[76] Some still had to serve lengthy prison sentences on other charges, albeit one of the witnesses at the trial, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., would later kill three people in shootings at Jewish community centers in 2014.
[77] Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Mexico, was investigated for sedition in September 2005 after writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence.
[78][79][80] Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation.
[83] In August 2012, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts dismissed all serious charges against the remaining defendants, including sedition, and rebuked prosecutors for bringing the case.
[89] On 6 June, 2022, five members or associates of the militia group Proud Boys, including the former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, were indicted for seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the January 6 United States Capitol attack.
After the 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis some of the leaders of the Catalan independence movement were charged with several criminal offences, notably rebellion and sedition.
