Sedition
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- This is about the law term. For other uses see Sedition (disambiguation)
Sedition is a term of law to refer to covert conduct such as speech and organization that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often included subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel.
Because sedition is typically considered a subversive act, the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another. Where those legal codes have a traceable history, there is also a record of the change of definition for what constituted sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within study of persecution.
The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).
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[edit] History
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" [1,89]. Ibid, p90: "Sedition complements treason and martial law: while treason controls primarily the privileged, ecclesiastical opponents, priests, and Jesuits, as well as certain commoners; and martial law frightens commoners, sedition frightens intellectuals."
[edit] Australia
Australia's sedition laws were amended in anti-terrorism legislation passed on 06 December 2005, updating definitions and increasing penalties.
In late 2006, the Howard Government proposed plans to amend Australia's Crimes Act 1914, introducing laws that mean artists and writers may be gaoled for up to seven years if their work was considered "seditious", or inspired sedition, either deliberately or accidentally.[1]
Over the past year, Australian attorney-general Philip Ruddock has rejected calls by two reports—from a Senate committee and the Australian Law Reform Commission—to limit the sedition provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 by requiring proof of intention to cause disaffection or violence. He has also brushed aside recommendations to curtail new clauses outlawing “urging conduct” that “assists” an “organisation or country engaged in armed hostilities” against the Australian military. The new laws, inserted into the legislation last December, allow for the criminalization of basic expressions of political opposition, including supporting resistance to Australian military interventions, such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Asia-Pacific region. [2]
[edit] Canada
During World War II former Mayor of Montréal Camillien Houde campaigned against conscription. On August 2, 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the National Registration Act. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition. After being found guilty, he was confined in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario and Gagetown, New Brunswick until 1944. Upon his release on August 18, 1944, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 50,000 Montrealers, and won back his job as Montreal mayor in 1944's civic election
[edit] New Zealand
In New Zealand Tim Selwyn was convicted of sedition (section 83 of the Crimes Act 1961) on 8 June 2006. The Law Commission is calling for a repeal of the sedition laws.
[edit] United States
Infamous Federal statutes in U.S. history are the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Mexico was investigated in September 2005 for sedition after writing a letter [1][2]to the editor of a local newspaper, criticizing the government. Ms. Berg is now being represented by the ACLU.
[edit] See also
[edit] Reference
- Breight, Curtis, C. Surveillance, militarism and drama in the Elizabethan Era, Macmillian 1996: London.
- A synopsis of the Australian sedition laws: http://www.law.gov.au/agd/Department/Publications/publications/ICCPR3/articles/article20.pdf
- ABC's Lateline Transcript, 24/10/2006: Satire used to counter new sedition laws
