The government in Zimbabwe has proposed new contracts for all internet service providers (ISPs) that will force them to block content or report ”malicious messages” to the authorities.
The proposed contract, a copy of which was obtained by AFP on Tuesday, obliges ISPs to ”take all necessary measures to prevent” content inconsistent with Zimbabwe laws to be carried on its network.
”The provider shall ensure that objectionable, obscene, unauthorised or any other content, message or communications infringing copyright, intellectual property right and international and domestic cyber laws … inconsistent with the laws of Zimbabwe are not carried in his network.”
The contract also obliges ISPs to ”provide, without delay, all the tracing facilities of the nuisance or malicious messages or communications transported through his equipment and network, to authorised officers of … the government of Zimbabwe, when such information is required for investigations of crimes or in the interests of national security”.
Police in Zimbabwe last year arrested 14 people accused of circulating a subversive e-mail message calling for ”violent demonstrations and strikes to push [Zimbabwe President] Robert Mugabe out of office”.
In December Mugabe lashed out at the ”hegemony” of the north, attacking rich nations at a United Nations-sponsored information summit for imposing their views on access to information and freedom of the press on Zimbabwe.
He vowed his country will control the means to get information to its citizens, and stressed Zimbabwe’s sovereignty.
But in March, the Supreme Court outlawed as unconstitutional legal provisions that gave the president powers to eavesdrop or intercept e-mails or telephone conversations.
”Violent propaganda and misinformation are peddled to delegitimise our just struggles against vestigial colonialism, indeed to weaken national cohesion,” Mugabe said in December.
”[They are] efforts at thwarting a broad Third World front against what is a dangerous imperial world order laid by warrior states and people,” said the president.
”My country continues to be the victim of such aggression with both the United Kingdom and the United States using the [information technology] superiority to challenge our sovereignty through hostile and malicious broadcasts calculated to foment instability and destroy the state through divisions.”
Officials at the country’s telecommunications company, Tel-One, were not immediately available for comment on the new contract.
An official at one ISP raised questions as to whether the contract is legal and also said that it will be ”practically impossible to monitor and check on all e-mails communicated through our network”. — Sapa-AFP