Silenced - Zimbabwe

Privacy International

Silenced - Zimbabwe

21/09/2003

Zimbabwe

Media in Zimbabwe operate in one of the most repressive environments on the continent. Media workers are regularly harassed, detained and beaten by the police, with the cumulative effect that self-censorship prevails in both the media and civil society in Zimbabwe. The Internet has generally escaped government censorship because of its relatively low user group, but restrictive media laws have been introduced that can be used against Internet communications.

One of the first such laws was the Posts and Telecommunications Act of 2000. This act maintains that if, in the opinion of the President, it is necessary in the interests of national security or the maintenance of law and order, s/he may give a directive that any class of communications transmitted by means of a cellular telecommunication or telecommunications service (including email) may be intercepted or monitored in a manner specified in the directive (Section 98 (2) (b)). It is unknown if this has been used yet but the US Statement Department in their 2002 Human Rights Report stated ‘The law permits the Government to monitor and intercept e-mails entering and leaving the country, and security services reportedly have used this authority to monitor e-mail communication, although the extent of this monitoring was unknown.”

Many laws that deal with issues of broadcasting and public order were enacted to limit freedom of expression of the media including the Broadcasting Services Act, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Commercialisation Act and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). POSA is particularly notorious as it makes it a criminal offence to publish anything “likely to cause alarm or despondency” (and carries a prison sentence of up to seven years). The government blocks certain sites using legislation such as POSA.

Another particularly dangerous law is the misnamed 2002 Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act that requires reporters to be licensed. It has led to the arrest and detention of a number of journalists including Andrew Meldrum, a reporter for a British newspaper, The Guardian, accused of “publishing falsehoods,” even though the newspaper is available solely on a UK Web site. The case was dismissed by a court but Meldrum was expelled from the country.

The website of the Movement for Democratic Change, www.mdczimbabwe.com, has been shut down a number of times by its US ISP, Valueweb, for supposed spam abuse. Activists in Zimbabwe claim that ‘dirty cyber tactics are being used to destabilise the MDC’s communications’. This has occurred at critical periods, for example just before the MDC’s call for a nation-wide stay-away and more recently, just before US President, George Bush visited Africa and the African Union met in Maputo. The MDC was forced to have its site hosted by an external ISP when Zimbabwe Online (ZOL) declined to accept the MDC and Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum as clients in anticipation of political pressure on local ISPs. The MDC’s offices are regularly raided while intelligence agents view information stored in their computers.

Vibrant political discussion occurs via email and on Internet forums in Zimbabwe. The Chronicle (a state-controlled newspaper in Bulawayo) was recently hacked and information critical of Zanu PF was placed on its home page. Civil society organisations such as Kubatana.net have offered an alternative to the traditional media by providing a platform for stories that would in normal events be censored. Ordinary Zimbabweans have used Kubatana to publish their stories of illegal detention and torture; the media have sometimes used stories from Kubatana in their newspaper publications; and Zimbabwean civil society organisations have used the Kubatana directory to organise seminars, conferences and workshops.