Cyber Bill Endangers Anti-Corruption Fight

With the Cyber Bill back on the table, civil society and opposition politicians have been sounding warnings about its potential negative impact on basic democratic freedoms.

If the Bill goes forward in its current format there is considerable concern that the law would enable the government to listen to private conversations in full at any time.

As well as infringing the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy the Bill could also set back the fight against corruption in the wake of the HoneyBee Pharmacy scandal.

Alliance for Community Action (ACA) Executive Director Laura Miti is among those to have raised such concerns.

“Now, we have the Cyber Bill. They have started again saying it is about cyber bulling and protecting children. Nothing about preventing citizens from posting about corruption, punishing them for expressing themselves, monitoring private calls,” Miti writes.

“They will not say we want a Cyber Bill so that the public never gets to know about #42for42, HoneyBee, Social Cash Transfer, Ministers that get miraculously rich, Presidential daughters who try to take whole forests for themselves,” she continues.

“Simply, the Cyber Bill is there to stop the irritating noise of citizens whinging about corruption in the ears of power-holders eating at the table of plenty,” Miti concludes.

Civil society last week warned that there has been little to no consultation of NGOs during the drafting process in a statement issued by groups including the Chapter One Foundation, ActionAid, ACA, Caritas, Centre for Trade Policy and Development, CCZ, GEARS, TI-Z. Peoples’ Action for Accountability and Good Governance in Zambia and the Zambia Council for Social Development.

They also warned that “Zambia has specific obligations under several human rights treaties which guarantee in no uncertain terms the rights of all Zambian citizens to freely express themselves and to have their privacy respected. In its current form, the Bill falls short of several regional and international set standards on human rights aligned laws such as the the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection (Malabo Convention) which sets the standard for cyber security and personal data protection laws as well as capacity building, knowledge exchanges and experience sharing among signatories.”

The organisations called on members of parliament to consider the “dangerous provisions” in the Bill that must be addressed before it passes.

In a powerful message they warned MPs to remember “that they too may at any given time fall prey to legislature that limits their freedom of speech and right to privacy.”