A woman holds a placard protesting against a sedition case filed by police against a school after its students performed a play denouncing the new citizenship law, in Bangalore, India, on Tuesday, 4 February 2020.India's Supreme Court on Wednesday has suspended a colonial-era sedition law that activists say is often used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to target free speech and dissent.
Section 124A of the Indian penal code gives wide-ranging powers to the police to arrest people, who can even face life imprisonment, for an act or speech that "brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government".
"All pending trials, appeals and proceedings" under sedition, the court said, "be kept in abeyance" until the "re-examination of the provision is complete".The government had said Monday that it had decided to "re-examine and reconsider" the law but it remained in force.Amnesty International welcomed the Supreme Court’s order to suspend the sedition law until the government "re-examines the 152-year-old provision".
The government of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh, led by firebrand monk Yogi Adityanath from the BJP, has been an especially enthusiastic user of the law.
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