Article 126: "Any person who voluntarily causes disturbance to any assembly lawfully engaged in
the performance of religious worship or religious ceremony, is guilty of a misdemeanour".
Article 128: "Any person who, with the deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of
any other person, writes any words, or […], with the like intention utters any word or makes any
sound […] or makes any gesture or places any object in the sight of any other person is guilty of
misdemeanour and is liable to imprisonment for one year".
•
Right to receive information and to disseminate his opinions
(Freedom
of
expression)
Article 9 ACHPR.
This is probably the most delicate and vulnerable right of those intended to be
protected by either national and international laws and represents one of the key
issues of the leading texts on Human Rights. It is enshrined, in Article 11 of the 1789
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen; in Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and in Article 19 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights of 16 December 1966.
The two inalienable components of this right: “freedom of opinion” and “freedom
of information” are protected by the Constitution of Seychelles in its Article 22.1:
"Every person has a right to freedom of expression and for the purpose of this article this right
includes the freedom to hold opinions and to seek, received and impart ideas and information without
interference".
For a long time the basic issue raised by freedom of expression was attainment of the
conditions most conducive to its full development. Nowadays, in the "pacified
democracies", the issue tending to "make headlines" has concerned the relationship
between freedom of expression and other rights whose protection might clashes with
the full blooming of freedom of expression. We are therefore faced with a situation
that is delicate but also rich. It reflects the complexity of reality: the unitary, monistic
vision of legal systems must give way to a perception of competing, confrontational
areas. This should make possible to adopt a holistic approach in which the various
aspects are considered side by side to ascertain their concordances and also their
contradictions. It is in the aim of searching for this balance that Article 22 in its