Although it is tightly controlled, the Web is not the first concern of the government ... except during elections. In August 2008, during the renewal of the mandate of President Robert Mugabe, who has been head of state since 1987, the Zimbabwean government levered its power over journalists, including by hacking into their email accounts.

Two months after the presidential elections, Justin Mutasa, editor of the publicly-owned newspaper group Zimpapers, revealed that he had authorised the hacking into his editors' private emails with the help of software that decrypts passwords. Six journalists were from 3 to 15 August subjected to this heightened surveillance to gauge their loyalty to the president's party during the election campaign. In May 2008, the editor of the Zimbabwean Broadcast Corporation (ZBC), Henry Muradzikwa, was ousted from the company, along with seven other journalists for not having sufficiently backed Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) during the campaign.

Moreover, the editor of the magazine Umthunywa, Bhekinkosi Ncube, was suspended from August to November for publishing a photo of the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Morgan Tsvangirai, with the caption "Walile u Tsvangirai" (Tsvangirai refuses to sign) at a time when the two parties were discussing power-sharing after the defeat of ZANU-PF in 29 March 2008 general elections.

The government has since 2007 adopted the Interception of Communication Act that allows the state to intercept phone calls and email or faxes to "guarantee national security". The hacking into private information is not however authorised. Justin Mutasa justified his actions, saying that the "editorial lines are not set by the group editor but by the minister of information [...] At the start of each mandate, the new minister calls on editors and tells them what he expects. The editors have to obey".

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