What does sedition mean?

This is an excerpt from Azmi Sharom's column in The Star (Brave New World, Thursday 15 May 2008).

Sedition means:
(a) To make people hate or feel contempt or disaffection against any ruler or government;
(b) To excite people into changing any legally established matter other than by lawful means;
(c) To make people hate, feel contempt for or feel disaffection against the administration of justice in the country;
(d) To raise discontent or disaffection among the people of the country;
(e) To promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia; or
(f) To question the provisions in the Constitution regarding citizenship, Bahasa Malaysia as the national language, the special position of Malays and the sovereignty of the rulers.

However, your words and actions are not seditious if they were:
(a) Intended to show that a ruler has made a mistake;
(b) To constructively show that the government has made mistakes or is in some way defective in law-making and the administration of justice (with the exception of the listed matters in paragraph (f) above);
(c) To make changes in the country through lawful means (with the exception of the listed matters in paragraph (f) above) and to identify, with the intention of removing, any matter that will raise feeling of ill will between the various ethnic groups.

This is the law as it stands. It is not a verbatim reproduction of the Act because, believe me, if you think what I wrote is boring, the actual Act will drive you to tears.

Arguments will be made on both sides to determine if sedition has occurred, and if the case goes to court, then it is up to the wisdom of the judge to decide.

Meanwhile, since we are all intelligent citizens of a democratic country, I see no harm in examining the so-called seditious acts of these two fellows, and seeing if they fit into the definition provided for by this old colonial law.

While you are at it, you may want to see if anyone else has been uttering seditious words. It could be fun. For example, the next time someone questions your citizenship, you can always scream: “Sedition! Sedition!”

The law is very open-ended and perhaps it should be done away with. Just what sedition is appears to be in the eye of the beholder, and this is not a particularly ideal situation.

After all, one person’s sedition is another person’s practice of the democratic right of free speech.

For the full article, click on Sedition.


Additional info:

Country	Laws on Sedition
USA	Enacted in 1940, unused since at least June 1961, the Smith Act remains US law.
UK	The Terrorism Act 2000, Blasphemous & Seditious Libel Act , Treason Felony Act 1848, etc
New Zealand	Section 83 of Crimes Act 1961, last used 8 June 2006, recently repealed on 1st January 2008
Hong Kong	The Crimes Ordinance for deals with "acts done with a seditious intent, the uttering of seditious words, dealing with seditious publication or the possession of such publications".
Australia	Effectively defunct for nearly half a century , but returned when changes were included in an Anti-terrorism Bill passed on 6 december 2005, updating definitions and increasing penalties
Canada	Part II of the Canadian Criminal Code deals with 'Offences against Public Order'. It includes sedition (ss. 59-61), treason (ss. 46-50), sabotage (s. 52), incitement to mutiny (s. 53), etc.
Phillipines	Originally drafted in 1930, amended multiple times by executive orders from President Marcos, and restored to its original form in 1987
Singapore	Sedition Act is in Chapter 290 of the Statutes of Singapore, last revised in 1985.