The Guyana Police Force (GPF) on Friday night issued a wanted bulletin for United States-based Guyanese Rickford Burke for questioning about a number of allegations, including inciting racial hostility and sedition.
In a brief statement, the GPF listed the alleged offences as: excitement of hostility or ill-will on the grounds of race; sedition; use of a computer system to coerce and intimidate contrary to the Cyber Crime Act; seditious libel; inciting the provocation of a breach of the peace; and inciting public terror.
Section 2 of the Racial Hostility Act states that any person who willfully excites or attempts to excite racial hostility or ill will against a particular race or against any person on the grounds of their race by means of words spoken in a public place or transmitted by telegraphy is guilty of an offence.
Section 18(1)(a) of the contentious Cyber Crime Act, which was cited in the police bulletin, states that a person commits an offence of sedition if they, whether in or out of Guyana, intentionally publish, transmit or circulate by use of a computer system, a statement or words, either spoken or written, a text, video, image, sign, visible representation, or other thing, that advocates the use of force as a means of accomplishing a governmental change within the country. The section also criminalises the excitement or attempts to excite ethnic divisions or racial hostility. The section of the law had been criticised by the then opposition PPP/C when the Cyber Crime Bill was debated.
Section 19 (3) of the Cyber Crime Act also makes it an offence to disseminate information via computer which is known to be false to damage the reputation of another person.
Meanwhile, seditious libel, which is an offence under Section 321 of the Criminal Law Offences Act, refers to the making of statements that promote contempt for the government.
The statement added that Burke was also wanted over other alleged offences.
