Speaking Freely : Nompilo Simanje

Nompilo Simanje is a lawyer by profession and is the Africa Advocacy and Partnerships Lead at the International Press Institute. She leads the IPI Africa Program which monitors and collects data on press freedom threats and violations across the continent, including threats to journalists’ safety and gendered attacks against journalists both online and offline to inform evidence-based advocacy. Nompilo is an expert on the intersection of technology, the law, and human rights. She has years of experience in advocacy and capacity building aimed at promoting media freedom, freedom of expression, access to information, and the right to privacy. She also currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. Simanje is an alumnus of the Open Internet for Democracy Leaders Program and the US State Department IVLP Program on Promoting Cybersecurity.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*

York: What does free expression mean to you? 

For me, free expression or free speech is the capacity for one to be able to communicate their views and their opinions without any fear or without thinking that there might be some reprisals or repercussions for freely engaging on any conversation or any issue which might be personal, but also even on any issue of public interest. 

What are some of the qualities that have made you passionate about free speech?

Being someone who works in the civil society sector, I think when I look at free speech and free expression, I view it as an avenue for the realization of several other rights. One key thing for me is that free expression encourages interactive dialogue, it encourages public dialogue, which is very important. Especially for democracy, but also for transparency and accountability. Being based in Africa, we are always having conversations around corruption, around accountability by government actors and public officials. And I feel that free expression is a vehicle for that, because it allows people to be able to question those that hold power and to criticize certain conduct by people that are in power. Those are some of the qualities that I feel are very important for me when I think about free expression. It enables transparency and accountability, but also holding those in power to account, which is something I believe is very important for democracies in Africa. 

So you work all around the African continent. Broadly speaking, what are some of the biggest online threats you’re seeing today? 

The digital age has been quite a revolutionary development, especially when you think about free expression. And I always talk about this when I engage on the topic of digital rights, but it has opened the avenue for people to communicate across boundaries, across borders, across countries, but, at the same time—in terms of the impact of threats and risks—they become equally huge as well. As part of the work that I have been doing, there are a few key things that I’ve seen online. One would be the issue of legislation—that countries have increased or upscaled their regulation of the online space. And one of the biggest threats for me has been lawfare, seeing how countries have been implementing old and new laws to undermine free expression online. For example, cybercrime laws or even existing criminal law code or penal codes. So I’ve seen that increasingly happening in Africa. 

Other key things that come to mind are online harassment, which is also happening in various forms. So just sometime last year at the 77th Session of the ACHPR (African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights) we hosted a side event on the online safety of female journalists in Africa. And there were so many cases which were being shared about how female journalists are fearing online harassment. One big issue discussed was targeted disinformation. Where individuals spread false information about a certain individual as a way of discrediting them or undermining them or just attempting to silence them and ensure that they don’t communicate freely online. But also sometimes online harassment in the form of doxxing. Where personal details are shared online. Someone’s address. Someone’s email. And people are mobilized to attack that person. I’ve seen all those cases happening and I feel that online harassment especially towards female journalists and politicians continue to be some of the biggest threats to free expression in the region. In addition, of course, to what state actors are doing. 

I think also, generally, what I’m also seeing as part of the regulation aspect, is sometimes even the suspension of news websites. Where journalists are using those platforms