STATE OF PRESS FREEDOM IN SOUTHERN AFRICA 2022 Malawi President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera (third from le�) poses with some members of the media, including MISA Malawi chairperson, Teresa Ndanga (second from right) and Media Council of Malawi chairperson, Wisdom Chimgwede (second from le�) PIC CREDIT: Teresa Chirwa-Ndanga Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe were the other African governments named as Circles customers.(17) 2022 over a WhatsApp political conversation raises serious concerns about the insidiousness of surveillance. He adds that midway through 2021, it was further revealed that Botswana was also a client of Cellebrite, a spyware company that sells phone-hacking equipment. Mainje was charged under section 86 of Malawi’s Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security Act of 2016 for allegedly insulting Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera. This technology, according to Ndlovu, has reportedly been deployed to extract data from the phones of journalists as part of a wider crackdown on the media. Since WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, this exchange was not visible to the general public. Nevertheless, authorities intervened to detain a person over a private exchange. It is against this backdrop — of the use of law and technology to enable the violation of data and online privacy — that the digital rights landscape in the country remains a cause for concern within local civil society. Equally, the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Malawian investigative journalist, Gregory Gondwe, [mentioned earlier] and the subsequent hacking of the website of the PIJ, where his work is published, would suggest the use of surveillance technology by authorities. The arrest of Chidawawa Mainje on 1 May 12 The incident gives credence to concerns that