Some senior politicians in Swaziland think their phones are being tapped, a local newspaper has reported. One also thinks his car might be bugged.
The Sunday Observer reported (4 June 2017) that it contacted a number
of politicians and found some suspected phones were tapped but they had no
proof.
The newspaper reported, ‘House
of Assembly Speaker Themba Msibi, when interviewed about the possibility of
hearing devices and phones being tapped, said, “I too have concerns as at times
calls sound hollow, making one suspect that a third party could be listening
in.”’
Minister of Economic
Planning Prince Hlangusemphi said he had heard rumours with nothing official
and concrete to substantiate them.
The newspaper reported, ‘Minister
of Natural Resources Jabulile Mashwama said rumours of bugging have been around
since time immemorial.’
In July 2013 it was reported that police
in Swaziland were spying on the kingdom’s members of parliament. One
officer disguised in plain clothes was thrown out of a workshop for MPs and one
MP reported his phone has been bugged.
Ntondozi MP Peter Ngwenya told the House of Assembly at
the time that MPs lived in fear because there was constant police presence, in
particular from officers in the Intelligence Unit.
The Times
of Swaziland newspaper reported at
the time that at the same sitting of the House Lobamba MP Majahodvwa Khumalo
said his cellphone had been bugged ever since he started being ‘vocal against
some people’.
The House was told that MPs were attending a workshop
on the Elections Expenses Bill when they discovered a plain-clothed police
officer taking notes of the MPs’ comments. He was ejected from the
meeting.
The Times
reported that Ngwenya said as MPs they were now afraid to do anything because
there was too much police presence in their midst. ‘We know of the police who
ensure our safety and they are normally in uniform, we do not know what is
happening now,’ he said.
This
was not the first example of police spying. In May 2013, the Media
Institute of Southern Africa reported that police spies had infiltrated
journalism newsrooms in Swaziland, which had led to a heightened climate of
fear.
It is legal in certain
circumstances to tap phones in Swaziland where King Mswati III rules as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. The Suppression of
Terrorism Act gives police the right to listen in on people’s conversations if
they have the permission of the Attorney General.
When the Act came into law in 2008 Attorney
General Majahenkhaba Dlamini said
that anyone who criticised the government could be considered a terrorist
sympathiser.
In 2011, a journalist
working in Swaziland for the AFP international news agency reported on her
blog that her phone calls were being listened in to.
See also
POLICE
SPIES INFILTRATE MEDIA
AFP JOURNALIST’S PHONE BUGGED
STATE POLICE SPY ON SWAZI MPs
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