01 Feb 2018

The Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security notes with disappointment a news article carried by Sunday Standard newspaper of January 28th -3rd February 2018 titled ‘BIUST lecturer says blocking Facebook would be unwise’.

A press release from the ministry states that the opening paragraph of the article which says; “Not having been published in the Government Gazette, the contents of the Cyber and Computer related Crimes Bill that President Ian Khama spoke about in his state of the nation address remain a mystery’’ is not true, baseless and is meant to misinform and confuse the public.

It says the fact of the matter is that the Cyber Crime and Computer Related Bill, 2017 was published on the 20th October 2017 and it was supplement B of the Botswana Government Gazette.
“Prior to this, the minister was on television and radio on the 9th November 2017 on the same matter,” reads the release.

Minister Shaw Kgathi says the release specifically convened a consultative meeting with Editors Forum members on the 27th November 2017 to brief them on the Cyber Crime and Computer Related Bill, 2017, unfortunately none of the Editors Forum members attended the meeting in which the act talked of social media in general terms, and it made no mention of blocking facebook as the article alleges.

The release further says it is unfortunate for the newspaper to carry a news article that is full of untruths, a true reflection of lack of extensive research and information gathering on the part of journalists and as a ministry we consider that to be unprofessional.

Therefore, the ministry would like the Sunday Standard to retract the article using the same platform to correct the misperception instigated by the article in the public domain and in future desist from the tendency of misinforming the public. Ends