- April 9, 2014
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Blog, News
There was a time when Africa’s rulers didn’t pay much attention to the Internet: few people used it and it seemed like even fewer talked about the content it carried. Then came the Arab Spring and every insecure African ruler began to worry. Something might just suddenly go viral and they’d find themselves out of a job and in a cell. Uganda’s President Museveni has signed into law a new piece of legislation that might allow him to control what does and doesn’t appear on the Internet.
I found myself in conversation with Lilian Nalwoga, Head of ISOC Uganda and Kyle Spencer, Director of the ICT Association of Uganda. The piece of law in question is the Anti-Pornography Act 2014 which President Museveni signed into law on 6 February 2014.
The new Act has two sets of implications for anyone concerned with civil liberties. Firstly, in terms of the subject it seeks to address – pornography – it sets out a fairly fundamentalist position, looking for “the eradication of pornography.” Secondly, the means by which it seeks to achieve this aim opens the door to Government having the power to control and suppress free expression on the Internet.
The Act defines pornography as “any representation through publication, exhibition, cinematography, indecent show, information technology or by whatever means, of a person engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a person for primarily sexual excitement.”
This definition is so widely drawn that large amounts of imported films and television programmes would fall foul of it. Indeed, neighboring Kenya was so disturbed by such scenes in the recent Hollywood blockbuster Wolf of Wall Street that it banned the film.
It should be said at this point that there is an entirely sensible section of the Act dealing with the very real issues of child pornography that unarguably need to be addressed in law.
The most worrying features of the Act are the mechanisms through which this law will be enforced. The Act sets up the rather Orwellian Pornography Control Committee. Other countries have licensing processes and industry standards for film that allow citizens to choose what they do or do not wish to see. The Committee has as one of its key objectives, enshrined in the act, “to ensure the early detection and prohibition of pornography.”
The Chair of the Committee will be “a distinguished Advocate nominated by the Uganda Law Society.” There will then be seven members, one drawn from each of the following categories: media houses; publishing houses; arts and entertainments industries; education; health; a cultural leader; and a religious leader. The Committee has the power to initiate a prosecution and will be able to work with the police to arrest and charge people.
The person accused of trafficking, publishing, broadcasting, procuring, importing, exporting, selling or abetting any form of pornography will be fined a sum not exceeding 500 currency points (one currency point = Uganda shillings 20,000) or face imprisonment “not exceeding ten years” or both a fine and imprisonment.
The scary part for lovers of liberty is how the Committee will enforce another of its objectives:”the eradication of pornography.” It will force ISPs to use filtering software:”An ISP, who, by not using or enforcing the means or procedure recommended by the Committee to control pornography, permits to be uploaded or downloaded through its service, any content of a pornographic nature, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding 500 currency points or imprisonment not exceeding five years or both.”
The Committee will not be able to carry out its task unless it insists that all ISPs install software to carry out Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), a form of filtering software that will be able to identify who has been using what on the Internet. Once the software is in place, it is only a skip, a hop and jump to the day when the Government decides for reasons of “national security” that it wants to inspect the information on individual citizens.
Rumors have been circulating that the Government has installed FinFisher software of the kind sold by a German defense contractor to Ethiopia that has been used to spy on journalists opposed to the Government. Whether or not this is the case, this Act will require DPI software to be effective.
You might at this stage be having doubts about the arguments being advanced here. This is Uganda, after all, not North Korea. However, you may remember what happened back in 2011 when an opposition candidate was mounting a Walk To Work campaign through social media.
The regulator UCC sent a letter asking operators to block the social media sites. Most ignored the letter but former Government telco utl appeared to make some effort to enforce the ban. In the event, the blocking only lasted 24 hours. There have also been cases where bloggers have had their equipment confiscated and have been generally intimidated by the security forces.
Those with longer memories will recall the case of Radio Katwe in 2006 which had a website with content critical of the Government. It was effectively shut down by getting one of the leading operators to block access to it.
A local newspaper tried to get ISPs to comment on the Act and were either told “we can’t/won’t say anything” or “please leave your number and we’ll get back to you.” And this is how I came to find myself talking to Lilian Nalwoga and Kyle Spencer.
Nalwoga’s local ISOC branch put out a statement saying:”… we strongly condemn some sections of this Act that we see as an infringement on some principles of the internet – openness and privacy.
We believe there are alternative methods of controlling pornography consumption by adults without necessarily compelling internet and content providers liable for hosting pornographic content”.
They suggest various amendments to the Act, one of which is to make a clear distinction between public and private use:
“Whereas, Section 13 (a) states that “A person shall not produce, traffic in, publish, broadcast, procure, import, export, sell or abet any form of pornography.” This section violates users’ rights to access information.
We therefore recommend that this section should be changed to reflect prohibitions on pornography production, publishing, broadcasting in only public places. People should be allowed to procure pornography as long as it is watched within restricted areas such as residential places”.
It also points out that the kind of surveillance proposed is in direct conflict with international principles of human rights:” This section is a violation of the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance Principle on the Integrity of communications and systems, which states that “In order to ensure the integrity, security and privacy of communications systems, and in recognition of the fact that compromising security for State purposes almost always compromises security more generally, States should not compel service providers or hardware or software vendors to build surveillance or monitoring capability into their systems, or to collect or retain particular information purely for State surveillance purposes. A priori data retention or collection should never be required of service providers. Individuals have the right to express themselves anonymously; States should therefore refrain from compelling the identification of users as a precondition for service provision.”
Kyle Spencer sees it straightforwardly as a freedom of expression issue:” It is Internet censorship. It will make ISPs liable for content going through their networks. They will then need to install filtering to make individuals liable”. He also points to the wider damage it might cause:” The entire law is flawed and will be detrimental to the media industry. It will lead to the banning of music video stations.”
The Act has also caused some collateral damage to behavior in Uganda. Because the local Ugandan media had tagged the Act when it was going through Parliament “the miniskirt bill”, some local citizens took it upon themselves to strip naked women whose skirt length they objected to. The police had to intervene to put an end to these incidents. The Act actually says nothing about what kinds of clothes women may or may not wear.
This article was published by Smart Monkey TV.
Read more about the call to Amend the Act in the Press Statement released as part of the 25 years in celebration of the World Wide Web (WWW).
