The unwanted publication of personal information online—known as doxxing—is an increasingly common form of digital harassment of the press.
On November 23, 2023, Botswana’s Assistant Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Beauty Morukana Manake, published screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation with Ramasia, in which the journalist’s phone number was visible, on her Facebook page, which has over 63,000 followers, according to Ramasia, who spoke to CPJ, a statement by the Botswana chapter of the press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), and CPJ’s review.
Ramasia is a freelance reporter who covers politics, health, and other news for a variety of local outlets.
On February 1, 2024, the post was still live and contained screenshots of Manake’s conversation with Ramasia, who asked Manake for comment on allegations that she was “abusing” her office, including by arriving late at events.
In the screenshots, Manake said the allegations were baseless and part of a “witch-hunt.” Manake also said that she had been “abused and weaponized by people using the media for their selfish ‘political gains.’”
Ramasia told CPJ that he had called Manake, asking her to conceal his identity or delete the post, and that she had requested an apology, which the journalist declined to give.
Manake told CPJ that she felt unfairly treated by the journalist and accused Ramasia of deliberately attempting to tarnish her image.
On December 19, 2023, Madibelatlhopo, a group that campaigns against election rigging and is affiliated with the opposition party Umbrella for Democratic Change, published Dihutso’s phone number on its Facebook page, which has over 10,000 followers, according to MISA, CPJ’s review, and Dihutso, who spoke to CPJ.
Dihutso’s phone number was included in a series of screenshots showing a WhatsApp exchange in which Dihutso, a reporter with the privately owned Duma FM, sought comment from Madibelatlhopo’s spokesperson, Michael Keakopa, about the group’s registration as a private company and its shareholding.
As of February 1, 2024, the Facebook post was still live, along with commentary suggesting that Dihutso was an intelligence agent and a member of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party. Facebook commentators also accused him of being “naive and malicious” and claimed that Duma FM was founded on the “proceeds of crime.”
MISA said “indiscriminate sharing of [the journalists’] personal data” contravened their right to privacy under Botswana’s constitution and its Data Protection Act, and created “a hostile environment” for reporting.
Under the country’s data protection law, a person who processes sensitive personal data without permission is guilty of an offense and is liable to a fine not exceeding 500,000 pula (USD$36,500) and/or up to nine years imprisonment.
In a statement, the Botswana Editors Forum said Madibelathlopo’s comments were an “attempt to discredit or attack journalists for simply practicing their trade.”
Dihutso told CPJ he had reported the post containing his phone number to Facebook.
In response to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app in early January, Keakopa accused a CPJ staff member of being connected to Botswana intelligence, said “I’m going to publish this conversation for Batswana to know what I discuss with so called journalists just as I did with that other pseudo,” and told the staff member to “never send me stupid messages again.” Keakopa did not respond to subsequent queries from CPJ.
]]>“The brazen detentions of Botswanan journalists Ryder Gabathuse and Innocent Selatlhwa and the seizure of their electronic devices must be thoroughly repudiated by President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s government, and the intelligence agents responsible must be held to account,” said CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, Angela Quintal, in New York. “It is particularly concerning that the journalists have not received their electronic devices back from authorities, given Botswana’s abuse of digital forensic tools that compromise journalists’ sources.”
Authorities arrested Selatlhwa, a senior reporter for the Mmegi newspaper, without presenting a warrant, according to news reports and statements by local press freedom groups.
Following Selatlhwa’s detention, DISS officers raided Mmegi’s office in the capital city of Gaborone on Thursday evening and detained Gabathuse, the newspaper’s editor. According to a tweet by the outlet, one of the officers said “I am a warrant myself” when asked for a warrant during the raid.
Both journalists were released Friday morning without charge, but authorities kept custody of mobile phones, iPads, and laptop computers seized during their arrests, according to news reports and Gabathuse, who spoke to CPJ after his release.
CPJ has previously documented how Botswana has used Israeli Cellebrite technology to extract and analyze thousands of messages, call logs, emails, and web browsing history from phones and other devices confiscated from journalists.
CPJ called and texted DISS spokesperson Edward Robert for comment but did not immediately receive any reply.
]]>On July 13, about 25 law enforcement officers arrested Sethibe at his home in the town of Mogoditshane, northwest of the capital Gaborone, and charged him under a law barring “alarming publications,” according to news reports, a Facebook post by his outlet, and the journalist and his lawyer, Obonetse Jonas, both of whom spoke with CPJ via messaging app.
After arresting Sethibe, police seized two laptops, three mobile phones, a desktop computer, and passwords from Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler’s offices in the town of Kumakwane, Sethibe told CPJ. As of July 19, police have not returned the equipment.
Sethibe appeared in the Village Magistrate Court in Gaborone on July 14 and was released on a bail of 2,000 pula (US$156), according to Jonas and a police statement reviewed by CPJ, which said his next court date is set for September 6.
If convicted of spreading alarming publications, Sethibe could face up to two years imprisonment and an unstipulated fine, according to Section 33 of the penal code.
“Botswana authorities should immediately drop the criminal charge against Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler director Tshepo Sethibe and return all devices seized from the publication,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in Durban, South Africa. “Censorship and criminal prosecution should never be the antidote for journalism that authorities disagree with.”
The charges against Sethibe stem from a July 8 Facebook post by Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler, a privately owned outlet that publishes on Facebook and has nearly 344,000 followers about a missing 6-year-old child, which alleged that police had found the child’s remains and would cremate them without holding a funeral or releasing them to the family, according to a chargesheet reviewed by CPJ. Police maintain that the remains belong to the missing child although the family has refused to collect them for burial, according to a news report.
Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler has published several posts about the child since his March 2022 disappearance.
“They arrested me because the government is trying, by all means, to intimidate me from revealing the truth about the whereabouts of a 6-year-old boy,” the journalist told CPJ.
Near Bagali, assistant of the Botswana police service public relations officer, told CPJ by messaging app that he could not comment, as the “matter is before court.”
Sethibe was previously arrested with four other Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler staff members on criminal trespassing charges in January 2021, as CPJ documented at the time. The state withdrew the case on February 15, 2022, as Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler reported.
]]>“We do not, of course, welcome the law. We welcome the changes that were made to it,” Spencer Mogapi, the chairman of the Botswana Editors Forum, told CPJ in a recent phone interview. “We could rather be without this law.”
The original Criminal Procedure and Evidence (Controlled Investigations) Bill, which was tabled in January and reviewed by CPJ, offered law enforcement access to communications by “any means” without a warrant. This, among other concerns with the proposed legislation, rallied opposition from a regional coalition of media groups led by the Botswana Editors Forum, local politicians, labor groups, and CPJ. Within days, the government amended the bill, introducing a judge-led committee to oversee covert law enforcement operations and prohibiting warrantless interception, according to statements by the coalition and media reports from the time.
“It was relentless pressure,” Mogapi said following the amendments, which CPJ reviewed and others in the media coalition also welcomed. “There were people here who we had called to come and see what was unfolding on the ground and I think that worked.”
The amended bill became law in late February, according to a copy of the government gazette reviewed by CPJ.
John Moreti, a clerk with the cabinet of Botswana’s presidency, told CPJ by phone that feedback, including from media groups, had been incorporated into the amendments, but referred further questions to Botlhale Makgekgenene, a permanent secretary with the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security. CPJ’s calls to Makgekgenene and contact numbers listed on the ministry’s website rang unanswered.
During a meeting in early March between Botswana officials and members of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a regional press freedom group, Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Thomas Kagiso Mmusi said the government had incorporated public concerns.
Tabani Moyo, MISA’s regional director, told CPJ that it was good to see the Botswana government listening, but even with the addition of judicial oversight, the bill’s intentions were problematic and it did not adequately protect whistleblowers and privacy rights.
“The government is already keen on snooping on its citizens,” Moyo said. “They are coming up with a law that makes it legal, to justify [their] appetite to surveil.”
CPJ called a cell phone belonging to Mmusi, but no one answered.
CPJ reached by phone and messaging app presidential press secretary Batlhalefi Leagajang, who referred questions to government spokesperson John-Thomas Dipowe. CPJ asked Dipowe via phone and messaging app about journalists’ privacy concerns and reporting by the Toronto-based Citizen Lab research group that Botswana’s intelligence agency had acquired technology from the surveillance company Circles. Dipowe said he would call back on two occasions, but did not.
Long-standing laws requiring court orders for surveillance during investigations have not prevented Botswana police from extracting private content from journalists’ devices or accessing information from telecoms.
Police previously accessed a “subscriber report” on Mogapi through his mobile provider, Orange Botswana, a subsidiary of the French telecom, and presented him with a printout detailing his exchanges with a now formerpolitical opposition spokesperson under criminal investigation. Police also asked Orange for an “activity log” for a mobile account owned by local editor Oratile Dikologang, who continues to face charges over Facebook posts, and forensically searched his phone, accessing thousands of messages and files on his device. Neither of the journalists knew police had contacted Orange until it was revealed in court filings from 2020, which CPJ reviewed, referencing court orders for their telecom information.
CPJ has since identified at least four other journalists named in those 2020 filings whose details were obtained by police from another local mobile company, Mascom Wireless — Mmegi newspaper reporter Tsaone Basimanebotlhe, Sunday Standard newspaper reporter Kgakgale Job Makati, The Parrot online news platform co-founder Koketso Moswetsi, and Oarabile Sonny Sente, a freelancer who has left the profession. The documents said Mascom Wireless confirmed to police connections between the journalists and their phone numbers, and that their accounts were active. The documents also noted that this telecom information was requested under court orders, but it was not clear whether the police were aware they were investigating journalists. Like Mogapi, all the journalists told CPJ they had been in touch with the same former political spokesperson, Justice Motlhabani.
Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube previously told CPJ that he could not comment on the case for which officers accessed the journalists’ telecom information because it was before the court. He also did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment on police investigations conducted via Mascom Wireless.
Moswetsi said he was “astonished” when CPJ told him Mascom Wireless had given information about his mobile account to police and worried about whether sources would continue to trust him. In a recent interview he told CPJ that his close family and friends continue to suspect his phone is being monitored and they only speak over the phone using encrypted applications. Moswetsi expressed mixed feelings about the new controlled investigations law, but appreciated how the government made amendments following the public outcry.
Mascom Wireless acknowledged receipt of CPJ’s questions in May 2021 and February 2022 but did not give any further response. Orange Botswana told CPJ in April 2021 that they were not able to provide details about court orders, and did not respond to questions in early February about the proposed law’s implications.
“We have always known there was interception happening, but we had some solace that they [security agencies] will do it with the court ruling, not just on their own,” Mogapi told CPJ, emphasizing the value of courts and telecom companies as buffers against overzealous security agents. “They hate all this oversight.”
Botswana’s Intelligence and Security Services Act requires law enforcement to acquire a court order to conduct “searches or interception of postal mail, electronic mail, computer or telephonic communications.” Similarly, investigators can search a computer or phone and request information from telecom companies about their subscribers under the cybercrime law, but they need a judicial order.
It’s difficult to use a phone anonymously in Botswana: SIM card registration has been required since 2009, according to the local telecommunications regulator – something journalists have been concerned about for years. Orange Botswana, for example, requires customers to produce a national ID or passport to purchase a SIM card.
The new controlled investigations law adds to these regulations, including by mandating that service providers “install hardware and software facilities and devices which enable the interception of communications at all times.” Local media called these wiretapping responsibilities a “new job” for telecoms, and company directors that do not comply could face jail time. Anyone who declines to provide authorities access to encrypted information could also face jail time, according to the law.
When the law was proposed in January, Minister Mmusi said it was driven as a matter of urgency by standards set by the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body with a mandate to combat global money laundering and terrorist financing, according to local reports and government social media posts. In response to emailed questions, FATF media relations manager Duncan Crawford told CPJ that the body could not comment on legislation outside of official assessments.
“We know it’s not foolproof,” Mogapi said of the amended bill. “We will be very vigilant going forward.”
]]>The Criminal Procedure and Evidence (Controlled Investigation) Bill was published in the government gazette on January 12, according to a press release by local media groups condemning the bill and media reports. Spencer Mogapi, a newspaper editor and chair of the Botswana Editors Forum, which collaborated on the press release, told CPJ by phone on Friday, January 28, that the bill could be expedited through parliament and signed into law by President Mokgweetsi Masisi this week. CPJ reviewed a copy of the bill shared by Tefo Phatshwane, the director of the Botswana chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).
The bill would grant investigators the power to intercept communications without a warrant for up to 14 days if authorized by the head of an investigatory authority to probe offenses or prevent them from being committed, according to CPJ’s review of the bill. CPJ has documented the arrest and prosecution of journalists in Botswana, and local police’s use of digital forensics tools in 2019 and 2020 to extract thousands of files from journalists’ devices, including communications and contacts, in efforts to identify sources of their reporting.
Companies that facilitate communication could see their directors imprisoned for up to 10 years if they fail to install hardware or software to enable interception; anyone that does not provide decryption keys so authorities can access encrypted information could be jailed for up to six years.
“Botswana’s parliament should scrap the controlled investigation bill, which threatens journalists’ ability to communicate privately with sources,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Authorities should implement laws that protect journalists’ privacy and safety, not expose them to surveillance without oversight.”
Jovial Rantao, chairperson of regional press association The African Editors Forum, described the bill in a statement as the “worst piece of legislation to have emerged in Botswana, the Southern African region and the rest of the continent in recent history.” The Southern Africa Editors’ Forum expressed similar alarm over the bill.
Reached by phone and messaging app on Friday, Batlhalefi Leagajang, Masisi’s press secretary, told CPJ the bill was “not under the ambit of the presidency” and the president would allow the parliamentary process to proceed before acting.
Botswana government spokesperson John-Thomas Dipowe acknowledged CPJ’s emailed questions about the bill on Friday, January 28, but did not respond before publication.
According to social media posts related to the bill on January 27, Botswana’s minister of defence, justice and security, Kagiso Thomas Mmusi, said there was a need to have a law that could plug legal and security gaps relating to issues of money laundering and financing of terrorism.
]]>Basimanebotlhe, a politics reporter, said she surrendered her phone and password to the agents after they presented a warrant and could not find her computer. A senior officer then used technology sold by the Israel-based company Cellebrite to extract and analyze thousands of her messages, call logs, and emails, and her web browsing history, according to an affidavit from the police forensics laboratory. The affidavit, which CPJ reviewed, was submitted during a related court case.
“They’re looking for people that are divulging information to the media,” Basimanebotlhe told CPJ.
Botswana police also deployed Cellebrite technology to search the phone of Oratile Dikologang, a local editor charged in 2020 over Facebook posts who alleged that police violently interrogated him about his sources, as CPJ recently reported.
The use of powerful tools provided by private companies to scour seized devices raises significant concerns over privacy and press freedom. The experiences of Basimanebotlhe and Dikologang demonstrate that police in Botswana use digital forensics equipment to sweep up vast quantities of journalists’ communications from seized devices, regardless of whether they are charged with a crime. The extent of these searches was only revealed when police documents were submitted in court months after the fact, and it’s not clear what happened to the data.
Botswana’s security forces routinely arrest journalists and take possession of their devices, CPJ has found. In March, Botswana police seized computers and phones from arrested reporters and media workers with the Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler, a private, Facebook-based outlet, CPJ recently documented; officers demanded their passcodes, answered calls and read messages on the devices, and kept two of the phones as evidence even after the charges connected to that arrest were withdrawn in April. David Baaitse, a reporter for Botswana’s Weekend Post newspaper, separately told CPJ that intelligence agents took phones belonging to him and his colleague to be analyzed for six months following their arrest last year.
“If you take my phone and go and analyze it, you have my folders and everything, all my contacts,” Baaitse told CPJ in a recent interview. He added that such actions by security forces hinder journalists’ ability to gather information, saying, “Sources, they no longer trust us. They no longer want to deal directly with us.”
In Basimanebotlhe’s case, Mmegi reported that when her phone was first seized in July 2019, police were seeking evidence for their investigation of a former intelligence chief, Isaac Kgosi. The police claimed that Kgosi had taken photographs of undercover security agents, exposing their identities, and that those photographs were published by Mmegi in a February 2019 article, Basimanebotlhe said. The article, which was attributed to a staff reporter, had been written by one of Basimanebotlhe’s colleagues, Mmegi later clarified.
“They alleged that I had photos of DIS people,” Basimanebotlhe told CPJ, referring to an acronym for Botswana’s Directorate on Intelligence and Security Services. “They believed I’m the one who wrote the story,” she said.
The affidavit detailing the forensic search of Basimanebotlhe’s devices was submitted during Kgosi’s prosecution over the photographs, his lawyer, Unoda Mack, told CPJ by phone. It states that police used Cellebrite’s Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) and Physical Analyzer technologies to retrieve and evaluate the information from her phone, but found no evidence relevant to their investigation, according to CPJ’s review. Mack told CPJ that Kgosi pleaded not guilty, and local media reported that a magistrate ultimately dismissed for lack of evidence the charge that he had exposed agents’ identities.
“They said they didn’t find anything in my phone,” Basimaonebotlhe told CPJ. “[But] they went through my SMS, my WhatsApp [messages].”
CPJ contacted Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube over the phone about Basimaonebotlhe’s caseand he requested that questions be sent via messaging app. He did not respond to those questions, and previously declined to comment on the case involving Dikologang because it was still before the court. In response to questions about the Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler arrests, Motube told CPJ that investigations “may necessitate” detentions and confiscation of “any implement which may have been used in the commission of the offence” with “due regard to the rights of the individual arrested.”
Reached by phone, Botswana government spokesperson Batlhalefi Leagajang requested questions about security forces’ alleged use of digital forensics technology be sent by email. CPJ sent those questions, but received no response.
Cellebrite, which is owned by the Japan-based Sun Corporation, says that its UFED toolkit can extract data from mobile phones, SIM cards, and other devices even after the information was deleted, and its Physical Analyzer helps examine digital data. In April, Nasdaq reported that Cellebrite would be listed on the stock exchange via a merger with TWC Tech Holdings II Corp., a U.S.-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) designed to take companies public.
In response to CPJ’s questions about the use of its technology in Botswana and human rights due diligence processes, Cellebrite provided a statement emailed via the Fusion Public Relations company that said it could not “speak to any specifics” about its customers. Cellebrite “requires that agencies and governments that use our technology uphold the standards of international human rights law,” the statement said. “Our compliance solutions enable an audit trail and can discern who, when and how data was accessed, which leads to accountability in the agencies and organizations that use our tools,” the company added. Cellebrite did not directly address CPJ’s question about if the company considered the use of its tools to search journalists’ devices to be acceptable.
Sun Corporation and TWC Tech Holdings II Corp. did not respond to questions CPJ emailed about this article.
“[Police] want access to the data so they can know the sources of these journalists,” Dick Bayford, a lawyer in Gaborone whose firm represented Basimanebotlhe and Baaitse, told CPJ in a recent interview. “It [has] a chilling effect on freedom of the press.”
]]>The five are expected in court this month in connection to a case dating from January.
On January 28, police in Phitshane outside Botswana’s capital Gaborone arrested Tshepo Sethibe and Michelle Teise, two reporters with Moeladilotlhoko, a privately-owned news outlet that publishes on Facebook, and four media workers with the company — media security specialist Gosego Phofusetso, then-security guard Tumelo Modise, and then-staff photographer Kenanao Karele, according to Sethibe, who also serves as Moeladilotlhoko’s director, and Obonetse Jonas, the company’s lawyer, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Jonas said that all five Moeladilotlhoko employees were released 10 days later on February 7 after being charged with two counts of criminal trespass for entering two houses on January 25 and January 27 in search of Obakeng Badubi, a man who had disappeared earlier that month, according to a Botswana government notice posted on Facebook. Jonas said the employees had entered the house as part of a news investigation into Badubi’s disappearance; the outlet publishes stories on people who have disappeared.
Criminal trespass is punishable with up to one year in prison, according to Botswana’s penal code. Jonas told CPJ that the Moeladilotlhoko staff were last in court on April 15 and their next appearance was expected in June, but a specific date had not been set.
“Botswana police should drop all charges against the Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler staff and stop seizing devices from journalists,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in New York. “Authorities in Botswana should respect journalists’ privacy and allow them to do their work without fear of prosecution or other harassment.”
Between March 26 and 30, police again arrested Sethibe, Teise, and Phohusetso, as well as Moeladilotlhoko graphic designer Denis Khwinana and the outlet’s driver Tshireletso Badubi, Sethibe told CPJ. Teise and Badubi were arrested together in the southern Mmopane village while on assignment investigating Badubi’s disappearance; Gosego was arrested in in the residential Phase 2 area of Gaborone; Dennis was arrested at his home in the southern Tlokweng village; and Sethibe was arrested at the magistrate’s court in the southern Kanye village, he said. Sethibe said the police detained the group in police cells in Gaborone and seized their computers and mobile phones; the crew was granted bail on April 10 after being previously denied on April 1.
All five were charged with one count of seditious offenses and six counts of criminal trespass for activities related to their continued investigation of Badubi’s disappearance, according to Sethibe and the charge sheet, which CPJ reviewed. The seditious offenses charges, which are punishable with up to three years in prison according to the penal code, specifically related to the team’s creation of T-shirts with “Bring back Obakeng” printed on the front, Sethibe said.
The charges from the March arrests were withdrawn in mid-April, according to Jonas and reports by the government-funded Daily News and the privately-owned The Voice newspapers.
Jonas told CPJ that during the March arrests police demanded the passcodes to their mobile phones, which they gave them, and that all of the devices were returned after their release except for two phones which were kept as evidence. According to Sethibe, after the crew told police the passcodes to their devices, a police inspector who identified himself as “Arron” threatened to delete the Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler Facebook page, but Jonas convinced him not to do so. Sethibe also told CPJ that while he was in custody he saw officers answer phone calls and read messages on their devices. CPJ previously documented how Botswana police used digital forensics technology to extract information from a journalist’s phone.
Sethibe and his co-accused in the March case told The Voice that they would continue their investigations into disappeared people without fear.
CPJ tried to contact Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube via messaging app and email but the requests went unanswered.
In a statement shared with CPJ via messaging app after publication, Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube said the police do not comment on “live cases.” But police investigations “may necessitate” detentions and confiscation of “any implement which may have been used in the commission of the offence” with “due regard to the rights of the individual arrested.”
Editor’s note: The 13th paragraph has been updated with a response from Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube.
]]>Dikologang, the digital editor and co-founder of the Botswana People’s Daily News website, and two others still face jail time in relation to Facebook posts that police were investigating when they hauled the three in for questioning. CPJ documented the incidents this month, and made several attempts to reach representatives of the government and police in Botswana for comment. Dikologang denies responsibility for the Facebook posts at the heart of the case, and said that police questioned him about his own reporting.
Dikologang told CPJ that he refused to reveal his sources – but he did provide the password to his phone. Police then “successfully extracted” and “thoroughly analyzed” thousands of the journalist’s messages, contacts, images, audio files, and videos, as well social media accounts and applications, according to an affidavit that they submitted to court to support the ongoing prosecution. Other police documents reviewed by CPJ say Orange Botswana provided mobile account information for Dikologang and his co-accused, as well as another newspaper editor who was questioned during the investigation.
To examine the phone, police used a Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) sold by Israel-based Cellebrite and a Forensic Toolkit (FTK) from U.S.-based AccessData, according to the affidavit from the Botswana Police Service Digital Forensics Laboratory, which CPJ reviewed. Websites run by the two companies advertise their technologies’ utility for extracting information from phones and computers, as well as breaking into locked devices and decrypting information.
The search of a journalist’s phone in detention exemplifies the threat digital forensics technologies pose to privacy and press freedom around the world. CPJ has previously identified the acquisition of UFED and FTK in Nigeria, and of UFED and similar tools in Ghana – both countries where journalists report having their devices seized and being interrogated about their sources. And police in Myanmar used UFED to extract information from jailed Reuters reporters, The Washington Post reported in 2019.
“It’s a huge breach for a journalist,” Outsa Mokone, the editor of Botswana’s Sunday Standard newspaper, whose devices were taken when he was arrested in 2014, told CPJ in a phone interview this month. “We can’t protect our sources if our phones are seized.”
Dikologang was arrested alongside Justice Motlhabani, a spokesperson for an opposition political party at the time – who told CPJ that police tasered him during interrogation – and Letsogile Barupi, a university student who ran the Facebook page identified in the charges. The police affidavit says that in February 2020, well before the arrests took place, a senior officer had ordered that their devices be searched for information about “offensive” Facebook posts. Barupi and Motlhabani also told CPJ that they gave police the passwords to their devices and accounts during interrogation in April. Facebook pages they operated were subsequently disabled, they said, and CPJ has not been able to review the posts they were questioned about.
“This thing has sent shivers down the people who take journalism seriously,” the Standard’s deputy editor Spencer Mogapi told CPJ. Mogapi, who is also editor of local newspaper The Telegraph and chairman of the Botswana Editors Forum, said he was also questioned in the case because of messages he had exchanged with Motlhabani, which officers presented to him in a printout. He said he had known Motlhabani for years and was not charged in the case.
Police obtained the identity attached to Mogapi’s phone number in a “subscriber report” from his mobile company Orange Botswana, according to separate police documents submitted to court by the prosecution and reviewed by CPJ.
“It’s shocking,” Mogapi said when CPJ informed him of the report this month. “I don’t know what they have on me, what information they have about my contacts,” he said.
The documents say Orange Botswana also identified accounts owned by the three men facing charges and provided an “activity log” from Dikologang’s; a company representative previously told CPJ by email that they “comply with all court orders” and cannot disclose details to third parties. In a follow-up email regarding Mogapi’s subscriber report, Orange Botswana said CPJ should direct questions to the police in Botswana.
Reached by phone in April 2021, Morwakwena Tlhobolo, the police officer who conducted the forensic searches and submitted the affidavit, said he was not able to answer questions without senior approval. When CPJ called back, a person who answered the phone at the police forensics lab said that Tlhobolo was not permitted to respond.
Botswana police spokesperson Dipheko Motube has told CPJ before that he could not comment on the case because it was before the court, something he reiterated in response to a message about Mogapi.
Cellebrite responded to CPJ’s questions by email in April via representatives of Fusion Public Relations company. “We have multiple checks and balances to ensure our technology is used as intended. We require that agencies and governments that use our technology uphold the standards of international human rights law,” the email said. “When our technology is used in a manner that does not meet international law or does not comply with Cellebrite’s values, we take swift and appropriate action, including terminating agreements,” the email said. Cellebrite declined to comment on “any specifics” involving their customers or the use of their technology.
On April 8, Cellebrite, which is owned by the Japan-based Sun Corporation, announced it would go public via a shell company and be listed on Nasdaq, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
In an emailed response to CPJ’s questions, Sun Corporation said, “We are very sorry to hear about what happened, however we are afraid that we are not prepared to provide any comments, where there is no evidence provided.” CPJ asked what kind of evidence would warrant a response, but received no reply.
AccessData and its parent company, Exterro, did not respond to questions CPJ emailed in mid-April to addresses listed on their websites and to two people who identified themselves as Exterro marketing representatives on LinkedIn. CPJ called AccessData’s offices in the U.S. but was unable to connect to a representative. A voicemail CPJ left on the company’s U.K. phone number in May was not returned before publication. In early May, a person who answered the phone at Exterro’s U.K. office said they would find someone to respond to questions, but did not return CPJ’s call before publication.
“This affects my work,” Dikologang told CPJ of the incident. “Since [my sources] know the phone has been taken by the state, maybe they will be afraid to give information.”
]]>On April 10, 2020, police detained two other men, Letsogile Barupi and Justice Motlhabani, in the same case, they told CPJ in separate 2021 phone interviews. The next court date for their case was scheduled for May 19, 2021, according to Dikologang.
CPJ reached Dipheko Motube, assistant commissioner and spokesperson for the Botswana Police Service, by phone in mid-April, and sent questions by email and messaging app at his request; he declined to comment because the case was still before the court. Batlhalefi Leagajang, press secretary to President Mokgweetsi Masisi, responded to CPJ’s repeated calls by SMS to say he was busy, and did not respond to a follow-up message or phone calls.
Barupi, a university student, ran Botswana Trending News, the Facebook page that published the posts; he described the page to CPJ as “questioning everything.”
Motlhabani, a spokesperson for the opposition Botswana Patriotic Front party of former President Ian Khama at the time of his arrest, co-founded Botswana People’s Daily News with Dikologang, but gave up his stake in the publication in 2019, he told CPJ. He is currently employed as a non-partisan civil servant and still periodically works as an editor for the news website, he said. Like Dikologang, Motlhabani denies responsibility for Facebook posts on the page Barupi administered, but told CPJ that police abused and interrogated him about his own Facebook page, Botswana Breaking News.
CPJ was unable to review the Botswana Trending News or Botswana Breaking News pages in 2021, including the posts identified in the charge sheet, because they were no longer online. Both Barupi and Motlhabani told CPJ that their pages were disabled after police demanded their passwords during interrogation last year; they were not responsible for other pages with similar titles that were active when CPJ searched Facebook in May, they said.
Titles listed in the charge sheet and media reports about the case suggest some of the posts referred to President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s decision to implement a COVID-19-related state of emergency in early April 2020 and allegations that authorities were suppressing information about the rate of infection at the time. Another appears to discuss an alleged plot by security agents to kill an anti-corruption investigator who accused Khama of embezzling money in 2019, an accusation media reports say Khama has denied.
Dikologang, Barupi, and Motlhabani each told CPJ that they were arrested in different parts of the country, then transferred to the headquarters of the police Serious Crime Squad in the capital, Gaborone. They were detained there, and then in a prison in the town of Lobatse, for over a week before being released on bail, according to local news reports at the time. All three face two counts each of publishing “with intention to deceive” under the emergency COVID-19 regulations, plus one count of “publication of alarming statements” under the penal code, and one count of “offensive electronic communication” under the cybercrime act, according to the charge sheet, Motlhabani, and Kagisano Peace Tamocha, a lawyer representing Motlhabani and Dikologang who also spoke with CPJ.
Several people have been charged under the emergency powers, which penalize spreading information about COVID-19 that is deliberately false or based on unofficial sources with prison terms up to five years or 100,000 pula (US$9,250), according to the South African Mail and Guardian newspaper and CPJ’s review of the regulations.
Dikologang told CPJ that police physically abused him in detention while interrogating him about his sources. He said that while at the Serious Crime Squad headquarters he was stripped naked and had black plastic placed over his head to restrict his breathing, an account he also gave to local newspaper The Voice at the time.
“They were asking about sources and how our sources related to the former president,” Dikologang told CPJ. They were particularly interested in reporting about poaching that his website had shared on Facebook, he said. Botswana People’s Daily News, which operates with four staff as well as freelance reporters, began as a Facebook page around 2016, he said; the page, which describes itself as “dedicated to citizen journalism,” had over 423,000 followers in April 2021, according to CPJ’s review.
Motlhabani and Tamocha said police and intelligence agents seized cell phones and computer equipment from Motlhabani, and applied a taser to his back and buttocks during interrogation, as the Mail and Guardian reported at the time. As CPJ documented this month, police also used digital forensics equipment made by companies in Israel and the United States to search his phone and computer in relation to “offensive content” published on his page, as well as Barupi’s, according to an affidavit they submitted to court.
“They said they were aware that I was in touch with the former president and members of his cabinet and they wanted to know if he was one of my sources,” Motlhabani said.
Barupi told CPJ that police in Gaborone interrogated him about his Facebook page and asked if he had any political affiliations, but did not focus on the posts in the charge sheet; he was not mistreated, he said, but police seized his phone, requested his password, and reviewed his messages and contacts, he said. The same police affidavit described the retrieval of information from the phone relating to “offensive” content on his Facebook page.
Documents that police submitted to court, which CPJ reviewed, say that they confirmed ownership of mobile phone numbers the men used with Orange Botswana, the local subsidiary of the France-based telecom company. The company provided account registration information for all three, as well as an “activity log” from an account owned by Dikologang, according to the documents, which do not say what that log included or why it was sought. The documents reference a court order dated February 17, 2020, though one of the statements that an Orange Botswana representative provided to police is dated January 29, according to CPJ’s review.
In an email to CPJ, Lepata Mafa-Nthomola, director of legal & corporate affairs at Orange Botswana, said: “We comply with all court orders and the identity, profession or political affiliation of the subject has no influence on the legal obligation to comply with a court order.” We are “not at liberty to disclose the contents of a court order with anyone other than the mentioned entity or individual,” she said. In a separate email, Orange Botswana referred CPJ to police to clarify the apparent discrepancy involving the dates in the documents.
“The press now is going to fear that the government is using these kinds of laws,” said Dikologang, adding he was concerned that journalists may feel they were not free to report on stories critical of authorities. “Definitely it’s going to have an effect on how we’re going to operate.”
]]>At about 2:30 p.m. on June 18, intelligence agents arrested Baaitse, a reporter for the privately owned Weekend Post weekly, and Mosekiemang, a photographer for the outlet, after they photographed a building linked to the Directorate of Intelligence and Security, the country’s domestic and international intelligence agency, according to Baaitse and his editor, Aubrey Lute, who spoke to CPJ via phone and messaging app.
Over a period of about seven hours, agents brought the journalists to different locations in Gaborone, the capital, and interrogated them about why they were investigating the agency and how they conducted their reporting, according to Baaitse, Lute, and a June 20 article in the Weekend Post, which CPJ reviewed.
The journalists were detained overnight in police holding cells and, after the intervention of their lawyer, were released the following morning at about 9 a.m. after being charged with “common nuisance,” Lute said.
Baaitse told CPJ that he and Mosekiemang are expected to appear at the Broadhurst Magistrate’s Court in relation to the charges, but said a date has not been set. If convicted of common nuisance, the journalists could face fines of up to 5,000 Botswana pula ($426) or jail terms of up to two years, or both, according to the Botswanan penal code.
The pair refused to plead guilty to the charges and said they were simply doing their jobs, Lute said.
“David Baaitse and Kenneth Mosekiemang should never have been detained, let alone charged for taking a photograph of a building that has been linked to Botswana’s intelligence service,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Instead of pursuing journalists, President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s administration should direct its energy to reforming the country’s intelligence service and creating an environment where members of the press can hold elected leaders and the state’s security forces to account.”
Lute told CPJ that agents confiscated the journalists’ phones and camera for “analysis” during the arrest, and that authorities called both journalists last week and asked for their phone passwords, which they refused to surrender.
Baaitse told CPJ today that their phones and camera still had not been returned.
In the June 27 print edition of the newspaper, which CPJ reviewed, Baaitse wrote that the “dilapidated and unattractive” building they photographed was a “Grey House” run by the intelligence services, and contained state-of-the-art equipment that he alleged was used in an operation involving last year’s general election.
The newspaper has recently published many investigative pieces about the intelligence agency, including allegations that it helped to rig the 2019 election in favor of Masisi, who narrowly won, according to CPJ’s review of the paper’s coverage and media reports.
Baaitse told his employer in an interview shared on Facebook that the intelligence agents “did not treat us in a vicious manner [in custody], but we slept on empty stomachs.”
Botswana’s Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism said in a statement that the pair’s detention was part of a growing pattern of official harassment of Botswana’s private media under the government of President Mokgweetsi Masisi, whose office oversees the intelligence services.
A spokesperson for Masisi, Batlhalefi Leagajang, disputed that account and told CPJ via email that media freedom had improved under Masisi’s administration.
Leagajang wrote that the administration planned to remove “all legislative instruments perceived to be inimical to press freedom.” However, he also wrote that there were “undeniable instances of media excesses in search of bolder headlines at the expense of infringement of activities of some law enforcement agencies.”
Leagajang wrote that “the law takes its course” when journalists “stray into operations of ongoing law enforcement investigations or legally protected zones in the search for sensational headlines.”
“Journalists are not above the law and may be liable to criminal investigation just like all other citizens and residents,” he wrote.
]]>