#Gregory Gondwe

[humanrightsupdates]

Urgent Action: JOURNALIST THREATENED AND HARASSED (Malawi 11.24)

Journalist Gregory Gondwe has gone into hiding following his investigative report on the Malawi Defense Force’s dealings with a businessman who is under investigation for corruption. Following the publication of his report on January 29, Gregory Gondwe was alerted by “top government officials” that the Malawi Defense Force intended to arrest him for “endangering state security and detain him incommunicado unless he revealed his sources for the report. The Malawi authorities must guarantee and ensure the safety and security of Gregory Gondwe and other journalists in the country and respect, protect, promote, and fulfil the human rights of everyone including the right to freedom of expression and press freedom.

TAKE ACTION:

Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them.

Click here to let us know the actions you took on Urgent Action 11.24. It’s important to report because we share the total number with the officials we are trying to persuade and the people we are trying to help.

[gregorygondwe]

Computer Manipulated Reggae Music

Computer Manipulated Reggae Music

You remember those days when artists would go into the studio and separately record all the guitars, drum beat, vocals and all the attendant instrumentation without having to programme it using a computer and lose out on human artistic display.

There are a group of music lovers that are now making choices to stick to the old kind of music production and are therefore shunning the heavily computer…

[zimhope]

Malawian Journalist Gregory Gondwe Arrested

Malawian Journalist Gregory Gondwe Arrested

A Journalist, Gregory Gondwe was arrested by Malawian Police on 5 April 2022. His equipment with sensetive information was seized. This includes computers and phones. Gregory Gondwe the Director of Platform for Investigative Journalism (PFJ) was arrested concerning the story he wrote about Attorney General published on 30 March 2022. PFJ is prominent for publishing issues related to…

[anewsbuddy]

Africa's data gap: Measuring the cost of not counting the dead - BBC News

Africa’s data gap: Measuring the cost of not counting the dead – BBC News

Researchers: Saikou Jabai Suware (The Gambia), Boubacar Diallo (Guinea), Yasine Mohabeuth (Comoros), Carlos Tobias (Togo), Vincent Niebede (Chad), Alberto Dabo (Guinea-Bissau), Serge Tomondji (Burkina Faso), Crispin Dembasse (Central African Republic), Curtis Slimar (Zambia), Gregory Gondwe (Malawi), Awedni Daweja (Tunisia), Abdelrahman Abutaleb (Egypt)

[denisehil0]

Opposition poised to win Malawi’s fresh presidential vote

LILONGWE, Malawi — The opposition looks poised to win a historic presidential election in Malawi, where a court overturned the original vote last year citing widespread irregularities including the use of correction fluid on ballots.

This is just the second time in Africa that a court has overturned a presidential election, following a ruling on Kenya’s vote in 2017.

Malawi’s state broadcaster on Thursday night said opposition Malawi Congress Party leader Lazarus Chakwera was leading with 59% with all votes counted, while President Peter Mutharika had 38%.

But Malawi Electoral Commission chair Chifundo Kachale told reporters they were expected to announce the winner in the next 36 to 48 hours.

Kachale said the delay is in line with legal requirements that commission must physically verify the results received. He said the commission also is verifying the null and void votes to ascertain if they could be reconsidered.

Mutharika is yet to make a statement on Tuesday’s election.

The constitutional Court on Feb. 3 unanimously struck down Mutharika’s victory and ordered that the May 2019 election be held again, ruling that the results were not valid because of “widespread, systematic and grave” evidence of irregularities and vote tampering.

Months of sometimes deadly unrest had followed the announcement of the election results as people in long-peaceful Malawi went into the streets to protest.

The 79-year-old Mutharika wants a second and final five-year term. Incumbent Vice-President Saulos Chilima had been expected to run but instead decided to stand as Chakwera’s vice-presidential running mate in a bid to maximize chances of unseating the president.

The contest appears to be very close. A poll in early June by Malawi’s Institute of Public Opinion and Research said the Chakwera/Chilima ticket could win 51% of the vote,

Gregory Gondwe, The Associated Press

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[khalilhumam]

Why Malawi urgently needs a data protection law

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/why-malawi-urgently-needs-a-data-protection-law/

Why Malawi urgently needs a data protection law

‘Are Malawians sleep walking into a surveillance state?’

A demonstration in the capital Lilongwe, organized by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), over fraud in the 2019 elections, which were eventually nullified. Photo by Steve Sharra.

This article is part of UPROAR, a Small Media initiative that is urging governments to address digital rights challenges at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).  In Malawi, authorities increasingly require citizens to give up personal information to engage in everyday life, from using a mobile phone to participating in elections.  But without a clear data protection law, citizens’ rights to privacy are under threat.  In 2017, the Malawi government rolled out nationwide registration. Every Malawian aged 16 and above is required to register into the national register and obtain a national identity card.  This followed the January 2010 national registration and identification system under then-President Bingu wa Mutharika’s National Registration Act. It took five years for the system to become operational on August 1, 2015.  According to the National Registration Bureau (NRB), the national ID system would serve many purposes by acquiring “information about the population” that would enable “policymakers to use data-driven planning” for development and services delivery. For individuals, this would give them “proof of their nationality and personal information so that they can use it to claim their benefits.”

Voter registration saga 

Most recently, these identification registration systems were called into question in the days leading up to Malawi’s do-over election in June, when then-opposition candidate Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, of Tonse Alliance, made allegations that underage children were being registered as part of a plot to rig the fresh election.  On social media, netizens posted photographs of children lining up, purportedly to be registered into the National Registration System, synchronized with voter registration. The NRB denied these allegations.  The Human Rights Defenders Coalition wrote to the NRB to express its concern over the matter, and the Malawi Human Rights Commission instituted an investigation.  The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that in the fresh elections, only previously registered voters in the original May 2019 election could vote and that new voters were ineligible. The decision came when then-President Peter Mutharika disputed the Constitutional Court ruling that ordered the fresh election.

SIM card registration and data protection 

The national ID process then became tied to the national sim card registration process. In January 2018, the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) announced a mandatory national sim card registration exercise.  Based on the Communications Act of 2016, this required everyone with a mobile phone number in the country to register their sim card. MACRA issued a deadline of March 31, 2018, to register every sim card, after which date all unregistered numbers would stop working. The deadline was later extended to September 30, with a requirement that all newly bought sim cards must get registered within seven days. By October 2018, it was estimated that up to 9 million Malawians had registered with the National Register.   MACRA said sim registration is important for several reasons: First, it prevents a fraudulent practice called “sim boxing;” it helps recover stolen phones; offers protection from violent, threatening, or hateful texts; instills “discipline” for abusers; helps law enforcement solve crimes; and checks fraud and theft committed via mobile phones.  Banks and telecoms companies operating mobile money services embarked on a “know your customer” exercise in which Malawians were required to present their national ID for all transactions. They announced that failure to present a national ID would result in freezing one’s account.  University of Malawi scholar Jimmy Kainja pointed out in August 2019 that Malawians were being forced to give away a lot of their personal data to both private and public institutions when the country did not have a data privacy protection law. In his article, “Are Malawians Sleep Walking into a Surveillance State?” Kainja argued that the country needed a data protection law before Malawians were required to surrender all personal data. As stated by the NRB, data collected for the National Register includes a person’s surname and given names, nationality, date of birth, and place of birth. The NRB also collects data on one’s sex, current residence, height, eye color, passport number, marital status and parents’ information. The bureau also collects biometric information, including all 10 fingerprints, a personal photograph and signature. How safe was this personal data? What assurances were there that third parties would not have access to this data? Who would be held accountable should there be data breaches? Journalist Gregory Gondwe observed in July that digital surveillance was slowly creeping into Malawi while hiding behind legal instruments. Gondwe argued that the country lacked a “dedicated data governance framework” that placed citizens “at the mercy of those in the custody of such personal data as they could use it against them or worse still, pawn it for a profit.” Information technology expert Zangaphee Chimombo told Global Voices that sim registration is necessary, especially as the country ponders the introduction of cryptocurrency.  However, he cautions against potential abuse of sim card data by telecoms staff and government authorities. In cases where necessary, “the use of valid police search warrants should be ensured,” urged Chimombo.

A data protection law in the works

According to both Kainja and Gondwe, the government is currently drafting a data protection law, but bringing the law through the legislative process could prove to be a drawn-out process.  University of Malawi law scholar Edge Kanyongolo told Gondwe that a law for the protection of personal data would stand a better chance of passing if there was coordinated pressure among likeminded groups such as human rights advocates, doctors, lawyers and members of the opposition. Following Malawi's fresh election on June 23, Dr. Lazarus Chakwera became the new president of Malawi. He has since promised Malawians a new era in which the rule of law will be paramount, among other momentous reforms.  Kainja hopes that the enactment of a data protection law will be among those reforms. Malawians have been too willing to surrender their personal data without assurances of the safety and protection of their data, he observes.

Written by Steve Sharra

[gregorygondwe]

Where is Piksy's Sendeza Genre?

Where is Piksy’s Sendeza Genre?

With Gregory Gondwe

We really have to give it up to Piksy, born Evans Zangazanga. Piksy and his friend Nicodemo real name Nicholas Mbonela plucked up unbelievable courage to come onto the music scene with their own genre they called Sendeza analysis through their Machitidwe a Atumwi or was it Sendeza back in in 2008.

The two, trading as Atumwi, decided to be Nthumwi Piksy and the other…

[gregorygondwe]

Gregory GONDWE

[gregorygondwe]

Police conduct at Luciano Show

The Malawi Police Service in the country has officers that are hardwired to behave with some airs of renitent boorishness. I know so because I have two brothers – like cousins – who are police officers.

When we were staying together in the same household they were just like any other siblings; respectful to us the elder brothers and all that, but as soon as they completed their training at the…

[gregorygondwe]

Alleluya Band – the Modern Music Pioneer

Music was there when the country got independence in 1964 but due to political atmosphere, there was self censorship that by extension killed creativity.

The scenario remained the same until 1993 when first the country voted through referendum to have multiparty political governance and a year later when Malawi had the first multiparty system of government in place.

This also saw the birth of…

[gregorygondwe]

Nominate and Vote or Shut-up

In the early 2000 Malawi hired a Dane by the name Kim Splidsboel to be coach of the soccer national team, the Flames. If my memory serves me right, he is the man who brought up the term ‘Monday Coaches’ in our local parlance.

The thing is, there is a tendency for people to wait for a football team to play over the weekend and come Monday we start talking of how best the coach would have done to…

[gregorygondwe]

Govt. faults media on poverty reports

By Gregory Gondwe

Government has said recent reports in the media that indicated that Malawi is the poorest country in the world, based on the analysis of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of several countries, have exposed the incompetence of the Malawi media to interpret economic data.

Information, Tourism and Civic Education Minister Kondwani Nankhumwa expressed Government’s disappointment last…

[gregorygondwe]

Muma Awards scores highly on Sauka

Disregard all the challenges that the organisers of the annual Music Malawi (Muma) Awards have encountered to put up the event for the second year running.

The gesture to decorate late Mr. Michael Fredrick Paul Sauka with the Life Time Achiever Award for composing Malawi’s National Anthem dims all such challenges.

MediaCorp Limited and Trocadero Consulting in partnership with Musicians Union of…

[gregorygondwe]

Inviting Davido to plant trees

Nigerian David Adedeji Adeleke whose stage name is Davido got his fame through music. Last week he was in the country where he was paraded around like a doll to pose with fans and plant trees here and there.

Davido who is a recording artist, performer and record producer was in the country for three days courtesy of M-Cinema and the Go Green Campaign.

Mainly he was invited to be a red carpet…

[gregorygondwe]

Where are the Music Malawi Awards?

In January 2014, the Musicians Union of Malawi (MUM) inaugurated what it called the Music Association of Malawi Music Awards (MAMMA); the awards have since changed and rebranded to Annual Music Malawi (MUMA) Awards to reflect the overall mission and vision of the Awards.

By August 2014 organisers of the awards, the MediaCorp Limited and Trocadero Consulting who were doing so in partnership with…

[gregorygondwe]

Sangie’s jump into cheaters sequel

Sangie is the name that is lately on the lips of many. In June last year she did a track ‘I do it all for Love’ which has hit the airwaves as both an audio track and a musical video.

Of course it is a rhythm pronounced ‘Riddim’ created in 2012 by Foxxy at Step Up Records studio but she has bolstered it with her composition which is a reggae track that is in between the borders of Lovers’ Rock and…