Times are hard and getting harder in Zimbabwe, where people too proud to cry about their troubles could soon find it too dangerous to joke about them.
Zimbabweans faced with hunger, joblessness, the world’s highest inflation rate and shortages of every basic commodity ease their burden with jokes, often spread by e-mail or SMS in a country where laughter at the president’s expense is a felony.
Parliament next month will debate proposals to give the secret police extraordinary powers to intercept, read or listen to the mail, e-mail, telephone or cellphone communications of any of its citizens without the approval of any court.
The government denies any sinister intent, saying the goal is to get its anti-terrorism legislation in line with international practice. But Zimbabwe is not on the front lines of the war on terror, and government agents could use the proposed powers to monitor the communications of the political opposition, journalists and human rights activists who have been critical of President Robert Mugabe.
Secret police and intelligence agents could violate attorney-client privilege, track financial transactions and negotiations and eavesdrop on the private lives of anyone in the country. Any time a Zimbabwean visits a website, makes a deal or tells a joke, Big Brother could be listening or watching.
”The purpose of the Bill is to monitor and block communications for political reasons and to use information they get to persecute opponents,” said Lovemore Madhuku, the chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly, a civil society group very critical of repressive laws and actions of Mugabe’s government.
”It is part and parcel of the process of controlling dissent and stifling democratic debate,” he said in a telephone interview.
The government contends the Bill is part of a package of measures in the global war on terrorism already enacted by other countries with little or no opposition.
A similar law was passed quietly in neighbouring South Africa with the important difference that a court must approve any interception. In Zimbabwe, that authority would rest solely with Mugabe’s minister of transport and communications.
With a package of other security and media laws, Zimbabwe already has done away with freedom of press and speech. People cannot legally protest against the government, hold political rallies or meetings without prior police approval. Clergymen have been arrested for holding prayer vigils without prior police consent.
Jokes
Jokes about the president are no laughing matter to the government, which has arrested people for insulting the president. It is also illegal to say or write something that can ”falsely” bring the government into disrepute.
”Jokes about Mugabe are a crime,” Jim Holland, the chief executive of Mango, a Zimbabwean internet service provider, said in a telephone interview. ”But people send these jokes all the time on cellphones or e-mails.”
According to one popular such joke, a Zimbabwean police officer stops a motorist and asks for a donation to help pay a heavy ransom demanded by terrorists who have abducted Mugabe and threatened to douse him with petrol and set him alight. The motorists asks what other people are giving and the police officer replies that, on average, about two or three litres.
In another, a man tired of waiting endlessly in line at a closed petrol station announces he has had enough and is going to State House to shoot the president. He returns a short time later, complaining that the line there was even longer.
Holland believes the proposed law will have a chilling effect on such humour, but that the real dangers lie in the government’s ability to target its legitimate opponents and monitor sensitive business and financial communications.
”It is troubling in a country like this with its record on corruption that the government could monitor financial transactions or even internal communications ahead of a company making a tender offer,” Holland said.
He said that in early discussions about the proposed Bill one man who would be involved in any government monitoring effort told a gathering there was no cause for concern because the proposed law was only a threat ”to criminals and human rights activists”.
Holland and the chief executives of other internet service providers have agreed that if the law is passed, they will challenge it immediately in the courts on grounds it violates constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression.
But lawyers here note the government has intimidated and driven off independent jurists and packed the courts with judges friendly to the government. It also has pointedly ignored court rulings it dislikes. — Sapa-AP