Just when we thought the ministry of Cyber Security, Threat Detection and Mitigation was a big joke; the cops fire a warning shot!
We are reliably informed that at 5 am this morning, Martha O’Donovan of Magamba TV was picked up by the police and taken into their custody for ‘tweeting against the president’. In actual fact, Martha retweeted a ‘tweet against the president’ and amongst the 58 other retweets, she was picked out. The police came in with a search warrant and proceeded to confiscate all her electronic devices.
At the time of speaking to our source, there hadn’t been an actual charge laid on Martha yet. However, there’s some intel that suggests the charge is associated with a tweet made by Martha during the #ShokoFestival. Isn’t it interesting how people get arrested only so that the charge follows a whole lot later???
Nonetheless, after checking on twitter a bit, I came across a tweet by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Lawyers which states that Martha is said to have “undermined the authority of or insulted the President as defined in Section 33 of the Code”. Here’s the tweet:
Undermining authority of or insulting President as defined in Section 33 of the Code.
— ZLHR (@ZLHRLawyers) November 3, 2017
Well, to be honest, this case is not an offense under Zimbabwe’s Cyber Crime since so far it’s only backed by a Bill and not by a Law (so maybe I did clickbait you – sorry!). But here’s the point: isn’t this a classic case of the law overlap which seems too common on the Cyber Crime Bill?
If so then why on earth do we need to waste our already scarce resources repeating???
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9 comments
Techzim Today you have been posting articles bordering on jokes and this might lead to your site not being taken seriously and losing followership
Do you have an image of the “offending” tweet?
The Cybersecurity and Cybercrimes Bill is designed to repeal crossover/duplicating offences in the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
Dear Zimboz even if you support Zanu PF I hope you can see why we must vote this government out of power next year. We cant live in a country where you cant criticise a ruling politician. How then do you campaign? This is the end of democracy, we want freedom to campaign against a siting President. Zanu PF under Mugabe is killing democracy after destroying our economy. Cyber threat ministry must look out from mafiaz that want to hack our banks and our govt computers its not about criticising a failing politician.
As it is the majority of the country should be arrested then because no one in their normal senses believe we are in the right direction as a country, ZANU PF itself is divided. I thought democracy allows for divergent ideas and criticism. If we are not in agreement then we should all be arrested, not a few unlucky individuals. The likes of Trump are criticised on a daily basis. Cyber crime should be limited to hackers not people expressing their anger between themselves. If what we write was going to whoever we discuss amongst ourselves then there could be a problem, but even though, isn’t that what happens to Trump? He tweets what he wants after getting criticised. No one is perfect under the sun. Our leaders should concentrate on leading the country the proper way and not worry about getting criticised. They do criticise other leaders, don’t they?
It you don’t take yourself seriously, then your readers will also not take you seriously.
there should be a difference between TECHZIM and IHARARE, with articles like this TECHZIM is now desperate for news
isnt this news to do with tech? i fail to see why people are complaining about techzim covering it
Loving the analysis
I doubt this is a joke, I love the analysis and the authenticity of Tech Zim writers. Makes the news lively and ” relatable”