Mugabe intercepts opposition e-mails

Mugabe intercepts opposition e-mails - claim

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By Stella Mapenzauswa

ZIMBABWE'S main opposition accused President Robert Mugabe's government on Friday of blocking its electronic mail to subscribers to suffocate dissenting voices.

A local Internet service provider (ISP) notified subscribers on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's electronic mailing list that an e-mail from the party had been blocked because "it contains sensitive content".

Officials at the company were not reachable for comment. Several similar alerts have been sent out to MDC mail subscribers in the past two weeks.

"The blocking of emails from the MDC is yet another ploy by the regime to deny people access to as wide a variety of views as possible," an MDC spokesman said.

He said Friday's e-mail was an invitation to local media to a news conference where the leader of a smaller party announced he was joining the main opposition. he said the MDC was seeking legal advice over the blocked mail.

We reported this week that the government wanted to force all Internet service providers to sign a contract compelling them to block "politically sensitive, objectionable, unauthorised or obscene" e-mails. Government officials have not commented on the report.

French-based press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders denounced the reported move as a threat to freedom of expression in a statement on Friday

"It is necessary to fight such things as racial hatred and child pornography on the Internet, but it is very important this does not reduce the right of Internet users to express themselves openly," said the watchdog, which ranks Zimbabwe at 141 out of 166 countries on its press freedom index.

The MDC accuses Mugabe's government of enacting harsh security and media laws to muzzle critics as the country grapples with an economic crisis widely blamed on state mismanagement.

The government says the media laws instil professionalism in private media it accuses of spreading Western propaganda against its seizure of white-owned farms for landless blacks.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional sections of new post legislation which allowed Mugabe to order the monitoring of electronic mail and telephone conversations - Reuter
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