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landmarks
This page highlights landmarks in the history of sedition,
mutiny and treason law in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.
It covers -
Context is provided by the multi-page communications,
business & media timeline
on this site.
 burning
heretics and haystacks
1351 English Statute of Treasons
1546 French printer Etienne Dolet burnt at stake for blasphemy
and sedition
1597 Ben Jonson imprisoned for sedition over The Isle
of Dogs
1606 'seditious libel' becomes criminal offence in England
1791 prosecutions for seditious libel of vendors of Thomas
Paine's Rights of Man
1792 George III's Royal Proclamation against seditious
writings
1792 Paine found guilty of sedition
1792 'Scottish Martyrs' Thomas Palmer and Thomas Muir
charged with sedition, later transported to Australia
1793 UK constitutional reform advocates Joseph Gerald,
Maurice Margarot and William Skirving sentenced to 14
years transportation to Australia for sedition
1794 Robert Burns threatened with charge of sedition
1794 Horne Tooke, Thelwall, and Holcroft acquitted of
treason in UK
1797 Spithead and Nore mutinies in UK
1798 US federal Sedition Act and Sedition
Act of 1798
1798 Benjamin Franklin Bache charged under Sedition
Act for libelling US President John Adams
1803 William Blake charged for exclaiming "damn the
King and damn his soldiers"
1817 William Hone trials in UK for sedition and blasphemy
fear
of fenians and luddites
1819 'Six Acts' in England (including Blasphemous
& Seditious Libel Act)
1827 NSW enactment against "publication of Blasphemous
and Seditious Libels"
1831 Honore Daumier jailed for 6 months over seditious
Gargantua cartoon
1848 Treason Felony Act (UK)
1855 Ballarat Times editor Henry Seekamp imprisoned
for six months for sedition
1857 Sepoy Mutiny in India
1861 US federal Sedition Act of 1861
1865 NZ interpreter Charles Davis prosecuted for seditious
libel, found not guilty
1868 Treason Felony Act in NSW after attempted
assassination of
Prince Alfred
1898 International Anti-Anarchist Conference
1905 Potemkin mutiny in Russia
the
war against the wobblies
1909 Henry Holland jailed for sedition in NSW
1909 R v Aldred (UK)
1913 Maoriland Worker editor Henry Holland and
unionist Tom Barker imprisoned for sedition during 1913
waterfront dispute
1913 NZ seaman's union leader William Young jailed for
two months for sedition and inciting violence
1913 Edward Hunter of Buller Miners' Central Strike Committee
charged with sedition over 1913 NZ General Strike, receives
probation
1914 Curragh Incident in UK
1916 Maori mystic Rua Kenana found innocent of sedition,
guilty of 'morally' resisting arrest
1916 Unlawful Associations Act 1916 (Cth)
1916 arrest of 'Sydney Twelve' under Treason Felony
Act
1916 Crimes Act (Cth)
1916 Roger Casement executed in UK for treason
the
war against war
1916 Peter Fraser, future NZ Prime Minister, serves 12
months in prison during anti-conscription campaign
1916 Hubert Armstrong sentenced to 1 year in prison in
NZ
1917 US federal Espionage Act of 1917
1918 US federal Sedition Act of 1918
1918 Hiram Hunter receives three-month sentence for sedition
in NZ, released after 19 days
1918 US filmmaker Robert Goldstein sentenced to 12 years
under the Sedition Act 1918, released through
presidential pardon after 18 months
1918 NZ publisher Albert Ryan sentenced to 11 months in
prison
1918 Wilhelmshaven naval mutiny precipates collapse of
Second Reich
1918 'battalion disbandment mutiny in the First AIF
1919 demobilisation mutiny in US Expeditionary Force in
Siberia
1919 incident on HMAS Australia
1920 War Precautions Repeal Act 1920 (Cth) inserts
sedition provisions in federal Crimes Act
1920 Connaught Rangers mutiny in India
1921 NZ prosecution of university student for possession
of a Communist newspaper and association with "anti-militarists
and revolutionaries"
1921 US federal Sedition Acts repealed
1922 unsuccessful prosecution in NZ of Roman Catholic
Bishop James Liston for a St Patrick's Day speech
1922 Mohandas Gandhi found guilty of sedition, sentenced
to six years imprisonment
1930 prosecution of Fred Paterson for speech in Brisbane
Domain
1940 US federal Alien Registration Act ('Smith
Act')
1942 NZ pacifist Archibald Barrington serves year's hard
labour after two sentences at Wellington's Pigeon Park
1942 Koolama incident in Australia
1943 Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst executed
for sedition in Germany
1943 incident on HMAS Pirie
1946 William Joyce executed in UK for treason
1946 prosecution of Charles Cousens in Australia for treason
1947 last UK trial and acquittal of common law offence
of sedition
"better
dead than read"
1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR)
1948 Malaya Sedition Act
1949 Australian High Court rejects 'hypothetical answer'
claim by Gilbert Burns - Burns v Ransley (1949)
79 CLR 101
1949 jailing of CPA leader Laurence Sharkey in Australia
- R v Sharkey (1949) 79 CLR 121
1951 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Boucher v
The King
1952 Hong Kong prosecution of editor, publisher and printer
of Ta Kung Pao under 1938 HK Sedition Ordinance
1957 US Supreme Court in Yates v US rules that
prosecution for sedition should be restricted to the advocacy
and teaching of concrete action for forcible overthrow
of the Government rather than of principles divorced from
action
1960 prosecution of Brian Cooper in Australia
1966 International Covenant on Civil & Political
Rights
1969 US Supreme Court in Brandenburg v Ohio adopts
'imminent lawless action test': a state cannot forbid
advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except
where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing
imminent lawless action
1972 UK charge of sedition withdrawn during prosecution
1977 UK Law Commission Codification of the Criminal
Law: Treason, Sedition and Allied Offences paper
calls for abolition of common law offence of sedition,
does not support codification of the offence
1981 UK teenager Marcus Sarjeant sentenced to 5 years
(released after 3) under 1848 Treason Act after firing
blank shots at the Queen during Trooping of the Colour
1986 Law Reform Commission of Canada recommends repealing
"outdated and unprincipled" law regarding sedition
1986 federal Crimes Act in Australia amended to restrict
crime of sedition to statements/actions carried out with
intention of causing violence or creating public disorder
or a public disturbance
1989 Crimes Act in New Zealand omits crime of sedition
1990 failure of attempts in UK at private prosecution
of Rushdie for seditious libel and blasphemy
1999 Anwar Ibrahim lawyer Karpal Singh charged over seditious
statements made during Malaysian court hearing
life
after 9/11
2000 UK Terrorism Act 2000
2002 federal Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism)
Act 2002
2002 police mutiny in Vanuatu
2004 NZ action against activist Tim Selwyn for seditious
conspiracy
2005 three Saudi reformers sentenced to up to 9 years
in prison for sedition after urging King to move towards
a constitutional monarchy and speed up reforms
2005 Australian federal sedition law proposals
2005 Anti-Terrorism Act (No 2) 2005 (Cth) repeals
1920 sedition provisions in Crimes Act and inserts new
sedition laws into federal Criminal Code
2005 UK Serious Organised Crime & Police Act 2005
2006 UK expands counterterrorism laws by making "glorification"
of terrorism a criminal offence
2006 Tim Selwyn gaoled for two months in New Zealand over
sedition
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