Online Bloggers

CIPESA Submits Comments on Tanzania’s Proposed Amendment to The Online Content Regulations 2021

By Edrine Wanyama |

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has made a submission on the proposed amendments to Tanzania’s controversial Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations, 2020 that regulate online content service providers, internet service providers, application services licensees, and online content users.

On August 24, 2021, the government made a public call for comments on proposals…

Why are African Governments Criminalising Online Speech? Because They Fear Its Power.

By Nwachukwu Egbunike |

Africa’s landscape of online free speech and dissent is gradually, but consistently, being tightened. In legal and economic terms, the cost of speaking out is rapidly rising across the continent.

While most governments are considered democratic in that they hold elections with multi-party candidates and profess participatory ideals, in practice, many operate much closer dictatorships — and they appear…

Lessons on Flying from the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa

By Jason Pielemeier |
“Since men have learned to shoot without missing, we have to learn to fly without perching” — African Proverb
By citing these words in his opening message, Dr. Wairagala Wakabi, the Executive Director of the Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), captured both the daunting reality and the irrepressible optimism surrounding the state of Internet…

MLDI to Host a Strategic Digital Rights Litigation Workshop at FIFAfrica18

Announcement |
Litigation has been recognised as a potentially effective tool in removing restrictions on the free flow of information online in countries with repressive internet regimes. Increasingly, some initiatives are seeking to encourage collaboration among different actors in strategic litigation for a free and open internet.
Indeed, various cases in litigation for the respect and realisation of digital rights have recently been recorded in Cameroon, Kenya, Burundi and Gambia, among…

How Undermining Encryption threatens Online User Security in Africa

By Arthur Gwagwa |

For activists, human rights defenders, journalists/bloggers, whistleblowers, sexual minorities, among others, digital tools that use encryption to enable anonymity over unsecured online networks such as the internet to facilitate not only free flow of information but also, and above all, protect personal security. At the fundamental level, anonymity is enabled by tools that use encryption techniques which…

African Human Rights Commission Denounces Stringent Internet Regulation in East Africa

By Daniel Mwesigwa and Edrine Wanyama |

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has denounced moves by countries in East Africa to slap stringent regulations on internet access and use. The commission’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa, Lawrence Mute, and the Country Rapporteur responsible for monitoring the human rights situation in Kenya and Tanzania,…

Media Watchdog Calls on Tanzania to Scrap Online Content Law

Tanzania News Update |

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Tuesday called on Tanzania to scrap a new law regulating Internet content, saying it targeted critics who had sought a “safe haven” online. The new law requires the operators of online platforms to divulge the names of their sources and contributors if the authorities require it.

News websites and blogs that are in breach…

Tanzania Orders All Unregistered Bloggers To Take Down Their Sites

Tanzania News |

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – Tanzania ordered all unregistered bloggers and online forums on Monday to suspend their websites immediately or face criminal prosecution, as critics accuse the government of tightening control of internet content.

Several sites, including popular online discussion platform Jamiiforums, said on Monday they had temporarily shut down after the state-run Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA)…

Tanzanian Court Acquits Jamii Forums Founders on One of Three Charges

By Ashnah Kalemera |

A Tanzanian court has acquitted the founders of popular online discussion platform Jamii Forums, who were charged over failure to comply with a police order to disclose the identity of two users of their platform.

The magistrate’s court at Kisitu in the capital Dar es Salaam found that Maxence Melo and Micke William had no case to answer in…