A lawyer is planning a challenge in Fiji's courts over the country's sedition law which he describes as archaic.
Photo: RNZI/ Sally Round
This follows the sentencing of dozens of people this year for attempts to set up separate Christian states in the country, and the ongoing sedition case against the Fiji Times and some senior staff.
The opposition MP Parmod Chand is the latest to be caught up in the law for alleged seditious comments and police are investigating him.
The lawyer for several sedition-accused Aman Ravindra-Singh said he wants to have the law clarified.
"There has to be the two elements. One has to be the mind was being seditious and secondly the act carried out was with a seditious intention. You cannot prove the crime of sedition if one is missing, therefore my application to the court will be to ask for clarification on the charge itself and the elements that the prosecution needs to prove," said Aman Ravindra-Singh.
Mr Ravindra-Singh said it was important to have the law clarified because the offence was being used to harass people and have dissenting voices suppressed.