The government has no plan to bring sedition charges against the militants who have been carrying out bomb attacks on different government mechanisms, including the judiciary, since last August with a view to establishing "the rule of Islam". Over three months ago, State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfozzaman Babar, however, said the government is not reluctant to bring sedition charges against the bombers.
| Changed their minds, did they? |
"If we find their action amounting to sedition, there will not be any unwillingness on our part," the state minister told reporters on September 14. The government was examining the legal aspects of the matter at that time, he said.
SEDITION - Conduct which is directed against a government and which tends toward insurrection but does not amount to treason. Treasonous conduct consists of levying war against the United States or of adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
The raising commotions or disturbances in the state; it is a revolt against legitimate authority.
The distinction between sedition and treason consists in this, that though its ultimate object is a violation of the public peace, or at least such a course of measures as evidently engenders it, yet it does not aim at direct and open violence against the laws, or the subversion of the Constitution. The bombing campaign, assuming it's not in the service of a foreign state, isn't treason under the American definition, which is derived from common law. I'd say it meets the definition of insurrection square on, though. Raising a commotion in the state and revolt against legitimate authority, too. |
The militants, in a bid to achieve their goals, have been carrying out suicide attacks and bombings that so far killed 27, including two judges and four lawyers, and left people in abysmal insecurity.
| So how's that miss the definition? Or is the Bangla definition that far away from ours? |
Meanwhile, the arrested militants of the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) have confessed to working to establish Islamic Shariah replacing the existing laws. Legal experts termed the militants' target and activities anti-state and suggested filing sedition charges along with the criminal cases against them. But the home ministry has asked the law enforcers to submit charge sheets against those so far learnt to be involved in the bomb attacks and bring them under conviction.
| Sedition's a capital offense. I'd guess their protectors can fix anything less... |
The law enforcers have arrested around 800 people since August 17 on charges of militancy and filed 181 cases, most of them under the Explosive Substances Act. The act has a provision of 20-year imprisonment as the highest punishment.
| ... rather than a stretched neck. This is kind of transparent, isn't it? |
Babar on September 14 said, "Cases have been filed across the country under the Explosive Substances Act and Special Power Act, which suit best, and the probe is on accordingly." The law enforcers have so far submitted 85 charge sheets and sent eight cases to the Speedy Trial Tribunal. |