New Zealander tried on sedition charges

Idiot/SavantJun 6th, 2006 - 03:26:01

The charge of 'seditious conspiracy' has been withdrawn, and its now two charges of 'making a seditious statement'. As for the history, it's unclear. An academic paper I've read suggests that there were two sedition charges dealt with summarily in 1967, but there's no apparently documentary evidence beyond police statistics. Before that, there are cases from the early 30's under a parallel piece of legislation, taken against people distributing communist literature (they were jailed for 'inciting violence and lawlessness' by talking about global revolution and encouraging people to resist government policy). But the last case under a strict sedition law (either the Crimes Act provisions or those in the War Regulations Continuance Act) was probably that against Bishop James Liston of Auckland, who criticised the British government's treatment of the Irish and rferred to the Black and Tans as 'murderers'. He was acquitted by a jury.

More information on sedition is here:

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2005/08/sedition-index.html

and examples of New Zealand prosecutions are here:

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2005/08/sedition-by-example-index.html< br />

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