PUBLIC STATEMENT DEMAND TO UPHOLD FREE SPEECH AND EXPRESSION
We condemn the demand of the BJP to “take the strongest possible action” against Arundhati Roy for her “seditious comments” at the seminar, “Azadi: The only way” held in New Delhi, October 21, 2010. There is recorded evidence to prove that the views expressed by her are not new and have also been made by innumerable others before and after her. If Arundhati Roy or Syed Ali Shah Geelani (or any other speaker from that seminar) is to be arrested for what they have said, then by the same logic a number of us would have to be imprisoned not to mention the entire population of Kashmir. The concept of ‘sedition’ is archaic and has no place in a modern democratic imagination. Perhaps for this reason the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution did not include “sedition” among the “reasonable restrictions” to Article 19(1) (a). In 1962, the Supreme Court (Kedar Nath Singh vs. the State of Bihar) read down Section 124A IPC to argue that only a call to violence or armed rebellion qualified to be considered as ‘sedition’. The same Judgement reiterated the importance of not allowing the provision to interfere with the Right to Free Speech and Expression. As the present controversy proves, the Supreme Court’s worst fears have been confirmed. The Bajrang Dal’s threat that they will hound Arundhati Roy like M.F Hussain provides further confirmation that ‘sedition’ will now be the new pretext for censorship. When the British charged Gandhi with sedition, he famously said, “Sedition in law is a deliberate crime but it appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.” Expressing dissent about the nation-state and re-imagining its future is certainly the right of every citizen if not the “highest duty”. [. . .] Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article1672.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
