On September 18, 2011, a group of gunmen attacked the village of Gatumba, near the country’s capital Bujumbura where they killed 30 people. The following day, the CNC imposed a 30 day total media blackout on any information about the incident. Communication Minister Concilie Nibigira justified the one-month ban on the grounds of “guaranteeing peace and security” and ensuring “the…
Jean Claude Kavumbagu, the editor of online newspaper Net Press, was detained for 10 months from July 2010 to May 2011 as a result of an article which criticised Burundi’s security forces and their ability and readiness to defend the country against possible terrorist attacks. He was charged with treason and defamation under the 2005 press law. Throughout his detention,…
The Iwacu a print and online publication allows readers to post comments to a forum after reading any press article. As part of the website’s user conditions, insults, defamation, racism and anti-Semitism speech are prohibited. Any posts infringing intellectual property rights are also not allowed. The website administrators reserve the right to delete infringing posts. Commentators are also required to…
The ISP CBINET provides child online safety protection services against adult content, including pornography. The “Parental control” service is available upon request. As written on its official web site, the aim of the protection is to avoid harming children. This is done by blocking adult content for subscribers who expresses the need to have those tools. In most internet cafés,…
In addition, tests conducted by Freedom House found that by April 2013, 70 websites related to news and opinion, 16 websites belonging to different Ethiopian political parties, 40 blogs, seven multimedia websites, and 40 Facebook pages were not accessible in Ethiopia. According to Freedom House’s State of the Net 2013 report, Ethiopia’s centralised backbone made internet access highly vulnerable to…
In September 2012, the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), conducted technical tests of internet filtering which found that Ethiopia continued to block online political and news content, including the blogs and websites of a number of recently convicted journalists and bloggers.Tests conducted between 2008 and 2010 had also found extensive evidence of filtering of political content. In the 2012 tests, it was…
Towards the end of 2014, Uganda’s government through the National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U), Ministry of Information Communication and Technology (MoICT) and the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs (MOJCA) issued a draft Data Protection and Privacy Bill for public comment.
The Bill seeks to protect the privacy of the individual and personal data by regulating the collection and processing of…
Right to information Privacy in Zimbabwe
Perceptions of the Right to Privacy in Zimbabwe
This research is based on the right to privacy perception study undertaken in Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. The report makes the finding that although enshrined in the Zimbabwean Constitution, privacy rights are still far from being protected and are being infringed by people in…
Keriako Tobiko and NCIC want Moses Kuria Prosecuted for Hate Speech and Incitement
In summary
Mr Tobiko made the request to a Nairobi court on Tuesday after the National Cohesion and Reconciliation Commission accused Mr Kuria of breaching an agreement for an out-of-court settlement.
Mr Kuria was accused of spewing fresh hate messages targeting the Luo community on his Facebook page barely a…
By Ashnah Kalemera
As humans, individual artists enjoy rights as enshrined in national laws and international instruments on freedom of expression, assembly and association. However, there are variations between countries on what the laws provide for and the level of freedoms of creative, artistic and cultural expression that citizens enjoy.
In Africa, various factors impact upon these freedoms – including political, religious,…