All cellphones, SIM cards
and electronic gadgets in Swaziland must be registered by law, the Swaziland
Communications Commission (SCCOM) announced.
Personal details such as
addresses will be kept on file. This will include pay-as-you-go deals. Companies
that refuse to collect information will be fined.
The SCCOM had been working
on the initiative ‘behind the scenes’, SCCOM Chief Executive Officer Mvilawemphi
Dlamini told a conference, the Swazi Observer reported on Tuesday (3 April 2018). A steering committee was formed in
December 2017 with representatives from Swazi MTN, Swazi Mobile, Swaziland
Posts and Telecommunications (SPTC), police, ministry of home affairs,
Financial Intelligence Unit and the Central Bank of Swaziland.
News of the move only
surfaced on 13 March 2018 when Dlamini announced it at the
closing of the first annual ICT stakeholder forum at the Royal Villas in Ezulwini. The Prime
Minister Barnabas Dlamini is expected to officially launch a registration drive
on Friday (6 April 2018).
Swaziland is not a
democracy and is ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute
monarch. Political parties are barred from taking part in elections and groups
advocating for freedom are banned under the Suppression
of Terrorism Act. Freedom of
speech and assembly are severely curtailed in the kingdom.
There is deep suspicion in
Swaziland that the State spies on King Mswati’s subjects, including members of
parliament.
In June 2017, the Sunday Observer reported a number of
politicians suspected their phones were tapped. 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’.
It is legal in certain
circumstances to tap phones in Swaziland. 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.
In September 2011, the
People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), a prodemocracy political party
banned in Swaziland, reported
that mobile phone communications
in the capital Mbabane had been cut on the first day of a planned five-day
protest in the kingdom.
It reported sole mobile
communication provider MTN Swaziland had shut communication. This was a repeat
of what happened the previous year during the first Global Week of Action when
communication was shut, PUDEMO said.
See also
POLICE SPIES BACK ON THE
STREETS
https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/police-spies-back-on-streets.html
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