At least 10 journalists have been arrested in the past one year in what seems like a targeted clampdown on free speech with the use of the controversial Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc) Act, 2015, Daily Trust reports.
Journalists from the International Centre of Investigative Reporting (ICIR), the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), The Whistler Newspaper, and FirstNews Online, among others, have been arrested, detained and intimidated in the last few months.
Since its enactment in 2015, at least 25 journalists have faced prosecution under the Cybercrimes Act, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The report, which was released in February, did not capture six other journalists that have been arrested and detained since then.
It would be recalled that President Tinubu signed amendments to the Act, including revisions to the section criminalising expression online, on February 28, but several reports indicated that there had been at least six journalists arrested and detained since the amendment was signed.
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Although the Act was amended earlier this year with a substantial adjustment on section 24, which listed what constitutes cyber-stalking and provided the punishment for such, the police and other security agencies have continued to rely on the previous definition of cyber-stalking to clampdown on journalists and other voices promoting open society and free speech.
What the amended Act says about cyber-stalking versus old provision
A review of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015, which the police have been using mostly for the arrest, detention, and in a few cases, prosecution of journalists in section 24, described the offence of cyber-stalking as “sending a message by means of a computer system or network that is grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character, or causes any such message or matter to be so sent or he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another or causes such a message to be sent.”
