Caught in the Net: Zimbabwe

A recent addendum attached to business franchise contracts by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe requires the country’s Internet service providers (ISPs) to block or divulge the source of e-mails that are "objectionable, unauthorized, or obscene." Mugabe has long considered the Internet to be a colonialist instrument, used by "a few countries… in quest of global dominance ...

A recent addendum attached to business franchise contracts by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe requires the country's Internet service providers (ISPs) to block or divulge the source of e-mails that are "objectionable, unauthorized, or obscene." Mugabe has long considered the Internet to be a colonialist instrument, used by "a few countries… in quest of global dominance and hegemony." Zimbabwe's ISPs call Mugabe's policy ill-conceived and unenforceable. "I just don't think that this was carefully thought out… and I don't believe that it will be practically possible," one unnamed ISP executive told the BBC.

A recent addendum attached to business franchise contracts by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe requires the country’s Internet service providers (ISPs) to block or divulge the source of e-mails that are "objectionable, unauthorized, or obscene." Mugabe has long considered the Internet to be a colonialist instrument, used by "a few countries… in quest of global dominance and hegemony." Zimbabwe’s ISPs call Mugabe’s policy ill-conceived and unenforceable. "I just don’t think that this was carefully thought out… and I don’t believe that it will be practically possible," one unnamed ISP executive told the BBC.

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