‘Internet restored in African nation amid court challenge’ 13 July 2021

No WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter. Cases of internet shutdowns in Africa. Uganda imposed a blackout in January, Nigeria banned Twitter in June and two weeks ago eSwatini – a tiny landlocked nation in Southern Africa where recent protests against the absolute monarch have turned violent – became the latest country to curtail internet access. Unable to check in on his family and communicate with his clients, consultant and human rights activist Melusi Simelane decided to sue the government for the shutdown. Simelane’s case, the first of its kind in eSwatini, was dropped on Thursday after the government lifted restrictions it said were imposed to maintain security.

…Over the weekend, pro-democracy protesters were attending memorial services all over the country. Police and military were present and some memorials turned violent. Internet is back up, but we do not know what will happen today. We are hoping for dialogue with government so that we can have a country that benefits all. We are a small country of 1.1 million people. We cannot afford to survive on big industries. Most of our small and medium businesses rely on WhatsApp and Facebook to make a living. A vendor selling airtime, for example, what happens to that person's dinner or rent? People could also not communicate with loved ones, to see if they were safe. It was impossible for people to study or work from home, and the economy was already suffering because of COVID-19. It drastically impacted people's access to information and right of expression in a sensitive time.

Sometimes I tell other activists: "We allow this to happen". We don't know our Bill of Rights, we don't even know we have courts and commissions to protect us, and this lack of knowledge enables the situation. Sometimes, living in an absolute monarchy, it can feel pointless, but for me, as an activist, it is about making enough noise to expose human rights abuses. People need to know their rights and bring matters to the fore. While some are protesting on the streets, others must also use the courts to challenge abuses. We need different strategies. There are mechanisms in place to protect our rights and we must make use of them. In this specific case, we asked for the internet to be turned back on, and it was, so we withdrew the case. But now we are looking to the future. We want to be ready for anything that may happen. What legal precedents could stop this from happening again? The rule of law must prevail over any political situation. Companies must be empowered in the future when given an order by governments to shut down the internet to say, look, we cannot do that because courts have pronounced this an infringement on human rights.