Dear Editor,
I am not even sure whether to laugh at the shameless utterances of the PPP ‘Wild Horse’ Anil Nandlall. Mind you, he, unfortunately was once the Attorney General of Guyana. Imagine, the ‘Wild Horse’ boldly proclaimed in the Kaieteur News, April 30, 2018 edition (`Sedition clause was inserted by Govt. – Former AG Anil Nandlall’) that; “Sedition is one of those offences that are archaic, anachronistic and is really a relic of the past. 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.” And according to the Kaieteur News, ‘The former Attorney General noted that sedition has been abolished in England and no one has been charged for sedition for nearly 130 years prior to its abolition…’
Again, I couldn’t believe what I read, and not sure if the reporter of this piece of fake news rushed to make news and in the process refused to do some basic Research 101 before publication. Editor, I now wish to remind ‘Wild Horse Anil’ that his party the PPP, during its horrific years in control of the government used the very ‘archaic’ and ‘anachronistic’ sedition law against the late Ronald Waddell, former GDF officer Oliver Hinckson, and myself. 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 infamous Camp Street Prisons.
With regards to Hinckson, in 2008, he was charged with sedition and was remanded to prison for almost a year. Interestingly, the ‘Wild Horse Anil’ should have remembered this particular sedition charge, since it allegedly stemmed directly from a conversation between himself, Hinckson and others.
Editor, I am against this particular clause of the Cybercrime Bill, which was shamelessly introduced by the current government. However, 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.
Hopefully, President 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.
Yours faithfully,
Mark A. Benschop
Former sedition accused under the
PPP regime
