With social media becoming an important platform for public discourse, governments in East Africa are seeking to silence alternative voices and penalise “improper” expression on the Internet.

According to the latest Freedom on the Net report by US-based think-tank Freedom House, more people are being arrested “for their Internet activity, and online media outlets are increasingly being pressured to censor themselves.”

Freedom House says governments in the region are also placing demands on private companies to provide information on persons of interest to the authorities. The report, which ranks 65 countries on their level of Internet freedom, shows that all African countries excluding Kenya, Malawi and South Africa, registered a downward trajectory in the past two years. 

Kenya takes the 28th spot in the world for having the freest Internet. It also ranks second in Africa and leads the East African region for openness online. Uganda ranks second in the region and Rwanda comes in third, amid widespread reports of online journalists being harassed by the government.

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During the two-year study period, the report notes that there have been a proliferation of repressive laws seeking to control online activity, while arrests and monitoring of social media users have increased. Online threats against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people have also intensified.

However, despite ranking among the top in Africa for having an open Internet, East African countries have in one way or another engaged in the tactics employed by the world’s worst abusers of net freedom such as Iran, Syria and China.

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In Uganda, the government has taken a number of steps to exert control over the online sphere. Freedom House says routine threats from the government — such as the recent shutdown of media houses perceived to be too critical of the government and reports of police attacks on journalists “have engendered a culture of self-censorship among journalists both off and online.”

In May 2013, President Yoweri Museveni’s administration shut down two newspapers — The Daily Monitor and Red Pepper, — and silenced two radio stations, following reports on plans to murder officials opposed to the president.

According to the US-based democracy think-tank, taboo topics in Uganda’s political discourse include the military, the president’s family, issues of oil, land-grabbing and presidential terms, and can lead to increased self-censorship among Internet users.

But Speak Out Uganda, an organisation that supports various freedom of expression campaigns in the country, says that more than 70 per cent of Ugandans feel free and safe to express themselves online. However, some have reported threats from state agents.

Among laws that threaten Internet freedom in Uganda is the Anti-Pornography Act signed in February last year. The law holds Internet service providers criminally liable for any uploads or downloads of pornographic material, vaguely defined as any publication of “a person engaged in real or stimulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a person for primarily sexual excitement.”

A Pornography Control Committee has been established and will require Internet service providers to install a government procured software that would block pornographic material.

Reports from the Ugandan press and civil society also show that there has been a noted increase in recent years of government surveillance of communications in the wake of terror threats facing the region.

Uganda is among five countries that sent requests to Facebook seeking details of its users but the corporation turned them down. The Anti-Terror Act already gives the Interior minister the powers to intercept private communications without judicial notice.

In 2013, the Daily Monitor reported that the government had sought the assistance of two foreign firms in voice and data surveillance of mobile phones and computers without permission from service providers.

The report said the surveillance would be done through a malware sent to private computers and cell phones to track the activities of the user. In mid-2014, allegations surfaced that Uganda had acquired Finspy, a sophisticated spyware that is used in other African countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.

Unwanted Witness, an initiative by Geoffrey Wokulira Ssebaggala who is a winner of the European Union Human Rights Defender award, says Uganda has been setting up Internet monitoring units in various security agencies since 2013 when Cabinet Minister of Security Mulira Mukasa said social media users are a threat to national security.

According to recent research by the organisation, the Cyber Crimes Unit established early last year, and criticised for
“scaring off online expression” by civil society activists, has profiled “dozens of Internet users particularly those deemed to be opponents of the government.”

The LGBTI community in Uganda has also not been spared in the online crackdown. Unwanted Witness reported last year that the community has been targeted by an e-mail spyware known as “Zeus malware” which gains access to their contact details and information.

In Kenya, the government has kept a watchful eye on online activity to stem the spread of hate speech. While the government does not filter or block access to content, a recent study published by the University of Toronto, Canada mapping global censorship and surveillance tools said Kenya had Blue Coat PacketShaper — a device that can help filter undesirable content — in the lead up to the 2013 general election.

However, Freedom House says there is insufficient evidence to show the extent to which this device has been used “given the government’s increasing concern over the spread of hate speech.”

Equally, the Nairobi-based Centre for Human Rights and Policy Studies says the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008, which outlaws hate speech, has encouraged media houses to develop community guidelines to moderate speech on their platforms.

The signing into law of the Kenyan Information and Communications Amendment Bill (KICA) 2013 and Media Bill 2013 last December have emboldened the government to crack down on hate speech on social media and blogs. Several bloggers and social media users have been prosecuted for alleged hate speech.

Prominent Kenyan blogger Robert Alai for example, has found himself in the dock several times on allegations of hate speech. And recently, university student Alan Wedo Okangi was convicted for insulting President Uhuru Kenyatta and saying members of a certain community in the Rift Valley should be relocated to their ancestral home.

The government has also been keen on gaining unfettered access to subscribers’ phone records without going through the judicial process.

When legislators were drafting the new Security Laws (Amendment) Act, of which the High Court suspended eight clauses recently, a proposal that was removed sought to give the National Intelligence Service the power to intercept communication without obtaining a court warrant.

Vodafone, the parent company of Safaricom, said in its 2014 Law Enforcement Disclosure Report that Kenya was among the 29 countries that requested access to user data and communications on Vodafone networks without a court order. The corporation rejected the request.

Google’s Transparency Report also said the Kenyan government for the first time since the company set up offices in the country, made 13 requests for private data but the company only complied with seven of those requests.

In Rwanda, a number of independent online news sites and opposition blogs have been inaccessible on several occasions while the government has allegedly maintained a number of fake Twitter accounts to harass, counter and discredit critics online.

Freedom House says the government restricts the types of content that users can access, “particularly news content of oppositional nature.” The organisation conducted a test last year and found that several independent online news sites and pro-opposition blogs were inaccessible while others were accessible only in some Internet service providers.

“Leprophete, an opposition website based in France, was accessible on the MTN Internet ISP but blocked on Airtel Internet,” according to Freedom House. “Content from Umusingi, Umuvugizi, and Inyenyeri News could still be accessed on their respective Facebook pages and other news sites that were sporadically blocked could be accessed through their associated blogs.”

Independent online journalist have faced harassment and arrests too. Stanley Gatera, the editor of the online news website Umusingi, was arrested April last year on extortion charges and fled the country upon being released.

A 2013 survey of 144 journalists in the country published by the government agency Rwanda Governance Board together with Transparency International found that about 50 per cent of journalists in the country practised self-censorship fearing consequences from the state.

The same year, the government enacted the Law Relating to the Interception of Communications that authorises high-ranking security officials to monitor e-mail correspondence.