Activist previously charged with Sedition says… PPP has no moral authority to speak on related clause

May 04, 2018 News

Social activist, Mark Benschop

The People’s Progressive Party (PPP)’s track record on the sedition charge which has been on the law books for several years has attracted new criticisms.

PPP Members of Parliament, including former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, and several community activists, have heavily criticized the inclusion of a sedition clause in the APNU+AFC coalition government’s Cybercrime Bill (2016) which is before the National Assembly.

Under the PPP, three activists were charged with sedition, including the late Ronald Waddell, former army officer Oliver Hinckson, and Mark Benschop.

In a letter published in the Kaieteur News on Wednesday, Benschop, who was also charged for treason under the PPP, stated that it would appear as though, past ministers and other government officials of the PPP regime are suffering from a severe bout of dementia when it comes to the state’s use of the sedition charge.

“Anil Nandlall and the PPP have absolutely no moral authority to pronounce on the undemocratic aspect of it. After all, he and his then government used it several times within the past 130 years, in an attempt to silence their political opponents,” Benschop stated.

Following a public outpouring of criticisms against the sedition clause of the bill, Nandlall came public to explain that sedition is one of those offences that are archaic, anachronistic and is really a relic of the past.

Further, Nandlall explained that an offence like sedition has no place in modern society and certainly in a society where there is a constitution that is the supreme law which guarantees free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press as a fundamental right.

Benschop reminded that the PPP, during what he termed as horrific years in control of the government, used the sedition law.

“Waddell and I were charged in March of 2001; the then government ensured that I was taken to court late in the afternoon when it would have been virtually impossible for me to post the hefty sum of $500,000 bail. So, I was forced to spend a long night in the concentration camp at the infamous Camp Street Prisons. With regard to Hinckson, in 2008, he was charged with sedition and was remanded to prison for almost a year,” Benschop recalled.

PPP MP and former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall

Nandlall has since pointed out that he served as Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs of the Government of Guyana from December 5th, 2011 and served until May, 2015.

“During my tenure, as far as I am aware, no one was charged for the offence of Sedition within the State of Guyana. I held no other office in or under any other Government. I read the misleading statements. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage those peddling the same,” Nandlall stated.

Benschop stated that Nandlall should have remembered the Sedition charge because in one instance it allegedly stemmed directly from a conversation between himself, Hinckson and others.

The social activist explained that he is against the Sedition clause of the Cybercrime Bill, which was “shamelessly introduced by the current government”. However, he expressed hope that President David Granger will “swiftly exercise political wisdom, and have his Attorney General remove the dreaded clause before it comes back to haunt his administration, and supporters in the future”.

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