Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has signed into law controversial new bugging regulations, it was reported Saturday. The Interceptions of Communications Act allows state agents to monitor telephones, as well as private emails and post.
The 83-year old president assented to the Act and a special government notice was published on Friday, said the state-controlled Herald daily.
Rights groups have warned the Act, which was fast-tracked through both houses of the ruling party-dominated parliament in June, will be used to clamp down on journalists, rights groups and the opposition.
But Mugabe's government has defended the bugging law, saying it will be used to intervene wherever there's a perceived threat to safety or national security.
The new law allows the communications minister to issue warrants to senior officials from the police, security and revenue agencies to bug phones and snoop on emails and letters of specific people or organizations.
Zimbabwe already has tough press laws, which make the southern African country one of the most difficult places in the world to work as a journalist.
Dozens of journalists have been arrested, detained and harassed in the past five years, and several foreign correspondents have been expelled from the country.
According to the new Act, local internet service providers have to participate in the spying by installing new computer hardware and software at their own expense.
The state will also set up a monitoring centre through which all electronic communications deemed threatening have to be channeled.
