Sedition clause in Cyber Crime Bill necessary to protect state- AG Williams – says legislation will protect people given Guyana’s “sensitivities” – Bill spent two years in Select Committee Meeting 

DPI, GUYANA, Friday, May 18, 2018

Guyana is a multiracial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society; therefore, the state has to protect itself says Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams SC., as he restated his support of the sedition clause in the Cyber Crime Bill.

Speaking at a recent press conference, the Attorney General said Guyana as a fledgeling democracy needs to have legislation in place to deal with sedition and the inciting of disaffection.

Using the country’s history of post-elections violence prior to the imposition of the presidential term limit as an example, AG Williams cited the need for this provision in the Bill. The AG also referenced Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo’s March 2015 “racially divisive” Babu John speech, which he said could have easily incited disaffection in a society such as ours.

“You have all these sensitivities so the state has to protect its people and it has to protect itself”, he explained.

Speaking more specifically to the Opposition’s concern with the sedition clause, AG Williams pointed out that the Bill spent two years before the Parliamentary Select Committee, which he chaired and these concerns were not raised by the Opposition MPs.

According to the AG, “I think what happened is Jagdeo is the only one in his party against this provision.”

The Attorney General said the Cyber Crime Bill was crafted using India’s law as a guide, which he said happened to be one of the world’s largest democracies. He pointed out that a similar law obtains in Canada.

It was pointed out to the AG that the sedition clause in the Constitution of the United Kingdom was repealed.

The AG said the law has been in existence for centuries, which means that society has achieved a level of development that enables the UK government to have other mechanisms in place, “and other institutions that can take care of persons who threaten the state and excite disaffection.”

Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, at a post-Cabinet press conference, said the clause was necessary to guard against espionage, sabotage and subversion.

By Stacy Carmichael

Images by Gajuan Jordan