Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Peter Mutharika hints at tough cyber laws

It was a statement enveloped in spirituality, but President Peter Mutharika hinted that the government was 'cooking' something that would see cyber space facing strict rules.
For a time, the Ministry of Justice has been working in the background to concoct laws that would see social media tamed, and cyber space policed.
And, on Saturday, during the consecration of the Very Reverend Father George Desmond Tambala as Bishop of Zomba Diocese at Zomba Catholic Secondary School ground, Mutharika specifically mentioned a case in which a banker based in Blantyre's Bangwe Township was rumoured on social media to have murdered his wife.
However, it turned out that the issue was a figment of the imagination.
“Where is our national integrity? Where is our love for one another? This is a country where people create a story that so and so has killed his wife, and spread the rumour on social media," said Mutharika.
This, on the surface, is an innocent statement made by a concerned president. The truth, however, is that the president was preparing the ground, the national psyche, for bigger things to come.
It could turn out that Malawi may find herself facing tough cyber laws, and those in the driving seat will cite cases that those of the Bangwe banker.
That is the bigger picture.

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