Zim social media ‘abusers’ face jail
Peta Thornycroft
ZIMBABWE says it is crafting new legislation to ensure that social media “abusers” at home and those resident in South Africa can be sent to jail.
It says it will instigate legislation to extradite citizens involved in social media “abuses” in foreign countries.
Provisions in a draft Computer Crime and Cyber Crime Bill empower police to intercept private communications, search and seize “electronic gadgets” and send so-called abusers to jail for five years.
The new laws will cover phones, laptops, desktop computers and any other gadget which can transmit information.
Zimbabwe’s security chiefs back the legislation with Zimbabwe National Army Commander Lieutenant-General Phillip Sibanda saying last week that the security services were on “alert” to deal with any “cyber-based destabilisation” attempts.
The proposed legislation says the police must secure a search warrant from a magistrate before searching and seizing electronic devices or those supplying broadband services or phone links, including mobile phone operators.
The state-controlled Sunday Mail quotes an ICT expert, Tonderai Rutsito, who said: “Our lawmakers need to be proactive in terms of coming up with legislation and not react to situations obtaining on the day and make laws based on that. We need a broader approach where law-making is independent of circumstances of the day.”
He said the law was a “step in the right direction” as it “complements” tough media legislation such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, used against several local and foreign journalists over the past 15 years.
The Sunday Mail says: “Since July 2016, some shadowy groups going by names like #Tajamuka and #This Flag have been trying to instigate civil disobedience under the pretext of “protests” tailored to destabilise Zimbabwe.
“United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Harry Thomas and his French colleague, ambassador Laurent Delahousse, were outed as the architects of the sporadic violence that occurred in pockets of Harare and Bulawayo which was triggered via social media.”
The foreign diplomats shrugged off the accusations and say they had nothing to do with the smartphone protests which began seriously last month.
One communication which emerged showed Zimbabwe police torturing a young woman, by beating her feet in front of her infant in a poor suburb south-east of Harare.
This torture is known in Zimbabwe as falanga and was regularly used by police and plainclothes pro-Zanu-PF activists after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was launched late 1999.
Another recent protest was encouraged by the #This Flag social media site which called on cricket supporters to sing the national anthem and wave the Zimbabwe flag at a weekend cricket match between Zimbabwe and New Zealand in the second cit, Bulawayo.
The #This Flag site was first noticed seriously early last month when it encouraged people to join unpaid civil servants in a national strike, which almost shut down parts of Harare for most of a day. When #This Flag called for another strike a week later, it was largely ignored.
A part-time pastor, Evan Mawarire, is the man behind#This Flag campaign. He was arrested after the strike and spent a night in police cells before being released by the Harare Magistrate’s Court when charges were withdrawn.
He left Zimbabwe, and emerged in Johannesburg and was joined by his family. He is now in the US where he will address US politicians and activists.
According to information from London-based Zimbabwe journalists, a small group of senior Zimbabwean business people, largely out of the country, helped finance and organise some of the recent social media protests.
Pro democracy legal organisations in Zimbabwe say they expect to challenge the proposed new laws.
The messages largely call for President Robert Mugabe, 92, to quit office after 36 years in power and they comment on the poor state of the economy which regularly sees civil servants paid late. Most banks severely limit withdrawals as Zimbabwe is chronically short of US dollars, the main currency it uses.