We now have the banned February 6 issue of _The Post_ online! Frank Stuart kindly provided a copy of the text. I've HTMLized it, added background documents and information about other international censorship efforts, and put it online at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/ Zambia's president-cum-tyrant Frederick Chiluba has plenty of practice censoring local dissidents, broadcasters, and newspapermen. Now, if he likes, he can take on the Net. I've copied this message to the state news service, Zambia Today. Please redistribute as appropriate. -Declan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NET CENSORSHIP AND ZAMBIAN DICTATORS By Declan McCullagh declan@well.com Zambian President and Dictator-for-Life Frederick Chiluba has made a career of intimidating, harassing, arresting, and censoring those who disagree with him. Now his attempts to muzzle his critics have reached the Net -- specificially, Zamnet, the only Internet service provider in this impoverished African country. Chiluba has plenty of experience intimidating traditional media. At Chiluba's bidding, in December 1994 an armed paramilitary unit raided the Lusaka offices of The Post newspaper and its printer Printpak in Ndola looking for "seditious and defamatory material" -- just as the presses were starting to roll. Germany's ambassador to Zambia, Peter Schmidt, who witnessed the raid, told InterPress Service that "the raid amounted to an attempt to intimidate the free press." A few days later, police arrested the top editors of the weekly Crime News and held them without bail and without filing charges. The journalists' offense? The newsweekly had revealed that Chiluba's wife was involved in drug trafficking. The year before, Chiluba sued The Weekly Post for libel after the paper reported on his shady financial dealings with South Africa. Chiluba also fired the head of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation for not broadcasting appropriately pro-government programming. In 1994, the ever-vigilant Chiluba introduced legislation to make the Zambian media answerable to a government-appointed secret tribunal with broad, undefined powers of censure and punishment. Chiluba's latest state-sponsored terrorism came in early February 1996, after The Post published a report revealing the government's plans to hold a referendum on the adoption of a new constitution -- plans Chilbua hoped to keep secret to the disadvantage of his political opponents. True to form, the hypersensitive Chiluba ordered his forces to invade the newspaper's office, ransack the paper's files, arrest the editors, and stop the presses. Security forces then sealed the offices of The Post. Chiluba's despotic behavior is reprehensible. Foreign governments immediately should yank the $1.8 billion in foreign aid Zambia receives each year and demand Chiluba's ouster. That failing, it's high time for the Zambian people to kick their thin-skinned tyrant out of office. February 16, 1996: Zamnet Communication Systems, which hosts the the web version of The Post, removes the online copy of the February 5 issue after police threaten a raid. David Lush of the Media Institute of Southern Africa publishes an advisory. February 18, 1996: After reading Lush's advisory, I send an appeal requesting the text to several mailing lists. February 19, 1996: Frank Stuart contacts me when I'm logged into the WELL, saying he has a copy of the banned issue of the newspaper. February 20, 1996: This archive goes online after I translate Frank's text into HTML. ###