The seizures took place largely at MBC offices in Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu following a complaint by MBC’s management about the creation of a “fake” Facebook page bearing the corporation’s name and logo, which the outlet had not approved, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the journalists, and police search warrants reviewed by CPJ. The complaint accused the 14 journalists of “spamming,” which carries a maximum penalty of two million Malawian kwacha (about US$1,190) and imprisonment for five years under section 91 of Malawi’s Electronic Transactions and Cybersecurity Act.
As of March 8, police returned three laptops and nine phones to the journalists, according to a journalist who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. The journalist, whose phone has been returned, is concerned that the device has been compromised while in police custody and will no longer use it.
Another journalist, who also spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said some MBC colleagues received email notifications about attempts to log into their Instagram and X accounts while their devices were in police custody.
Malawi police spokesperson Peter Kalaya told CPJ in a late February 2024 phone interview that the police investigation was being conducted in response to a legitimate complaint, and police had obtained a warrant before seizing and searching the devices.
“The investigation is not targeting journalists, it is targeting people who we suspect to be responsible” for the Facebook page, Kalaya said, but he declined to explain how the police had determined which individuals were suspects.
“We have a forensics laboratory and sometimes we use other institutions’ forensic laboratories,” Kalaya told CPJ, but declined to give specifics about the technologies used to search the journalists’ devices. “Our search in the gadgets is going to be restricted to those apps that we believe or that we suspect were used in the commission of the crime,” Kalaya told CPJ, adding that the journalists whose devices had been seized should trust the professionalism of the investigating officers. “Why should a police officer go to contacts, to [the] photo gallery when what he is looking for is not there, or if he does not suspect it will be there?” he said.
In January 2024, the local Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ-Malawi) reported that Malawian authorities had obtained the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), a powerful technology designed to access and extract information from electronic devices and sold by the Israel-based company Cellebrite. The Malawi police sought to further expand its investigative capacity with similar tools, according to the report. In response to CPJ’s questions about which tools, including those sold by Cellebrite, police used to search the devices of MBC journalists, Kalaya declined to give specifics.
CPJ has previously documented the use of Cellebrite’s UFED by police in Botswana to search journalists’ phones and has raised the issue of privacy concerns when law enforcement seizes devices and has access to such technology.
MBC director general George Kasakula declined to comment until the police investigation into the alleged spamming concludes at an unknown date.
On February 15, five police officers looking for Greyson Chapita, MBC’s suspended controller of news and programs, arrived at his daughter’s home. The officers told family members there to call Chapita and tell him that his daughter was sick to lure him there, the journalist told CPJ, adding that his family obliged, and he arrived shortly after. Once Chapita arrived, police officers told him that he was a suspect in a murder and requested to search his phone and laptop, but he initially refused.
Chapita told the officers that he would not comply until he verified that they were police officers, and he went with them to the local police station to confirm their identities. Once confirmed by a senior officer, Chapita returned with them to his home, where the officers showed him the same warrant citing MBC management’s complaint, and he opened his laptop and entered his password, he told CPJ. The officers then looked through his Facebook account for 30 minutes without further explanation as Chapita watched.
“[T]hey checked my Facebook account and took screenshots. They made me sign a document showing that they searched my laptop and did not find anything, so they didn’t take it. They couldn’t see my phone because it is not a smartphone,” the journalist added.
When asked about the police officers’ tactics used to summon Chapita and search his computer, Kalaya told CPJ that he could not comment on the specifics of the incident, but he said the journalist could file a complaint.
“What I can assure you is that our investigators are very professional and whatever they are doing is very professional,” Kalaya said.
Editor’s note: The photo caption in this case was corrected to reflect another location and time.
]]>“Investigative journalists like Gregory Gondwe play a vital role in ensuring good governance in a democratic society. Any attempts to arrest Gondwe or to intimidate him into silence would send a deeply worrying message about Malawi’s commitment to press freedom,” said CPJ Africa Head Angela Quintal in New York. “No single public institution is above reproach, and authorities should ensure that Malawi’s journalists can cover the military and the security sector without fear of retaliation.”
On Thursday, Gondwe, managing director of the privately owned news website Platform for Investigative Journalism, said on Facebook that he had gone into hiding after government sources informed him that the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) intended to arrest him in connection with his January 29 report alleging that the military had paid millions of dollars to a firm associated with Zuneth Sattar, a Malawian-born British businessman.
Sattar is being investigated by the UK’s National Crime Agency for alleged corruption relating to three public contracts with the Malawi government. Sattar has rejected the allegations.
Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima was arrested by the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau in November and charged over allegations that he received money from Sattar as a reward for assisting his companies in winning Malawian government contracts.
Gondwe said he was afraid for his life and that “death can be disguised as an accident.”
In a statement, the Malawi chapter of the regional press freedom body Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) said that it had received assurances from Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda and MDF Commander General Paul Valentino Phiri that the journalist would not be arrested.
Phiri told CPJ via messaging app that the military did not have powers of arrest and did not plan to detain the journalist. Nyirenda did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app.
In 2022, Gondwe was detained for several hours by the police who demanded that he reveal his sources for an article alleging that Nyirenda made payments to Sattar, despite restriction orders imposed on the businessman by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
]]>Mlozoa had been assigned to cover an anti-government demonstration by a group calling itself Malawi First in the Mangochi district, about 150 miles southeast of the capital, Lilongwe, Gabriel Kamlomo, ZBS’ director of news and current affairs, told CPJ.
Police officers stopped Mlozoa as he photographed them arresting a demonstrator, seized the journalist’s phone, and deleted his photographs of the incident before returning his device, according to a news report and a statement by the Malawi chapter of regional press freedom group, Media Institute of Southern Africa.
“Authorities should hold accountable the Malawi police officers who forcibly deleted the photos of police conduct from journalist Raphael Mlozoa’s phone and ensure that such blunt censorship never happens again,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, in Nairobi. “Journalists in Malawi should be permitted to cover demonstrations and other events of public interest without fear of harassment or intimidation.”
Kamlomo told CPJ that ZBS filed a police complaint about the officer’s conduct toward Mlozoa.
CPJ’s calls and questions sent via messaging app to Malawi police spokesperson Peter Kalaya and Mangochi Police Station publicist Amina Tepani Daud received no response.
]]>Around 2:30 p.m. on August 25, Chalika, a reporter with privately owned Kasupe Radio, was photographing a scuffle between rival fans at Bingu National Stadium in the capital Lilongwe when he was approached by at least 15 people wearing merchandise of the Silver Strikers Football Club, one of the country’s top super league soccer clubs, according to Chalika, news reports, and a statement by the Malawi chapter of the regional press freedom group Media Institute of Southern Africa.
The supporters demanded he delete the photographs, and when he refused and gave his camera to a colleague who immediately left, they began punching and kicking Chalika all over his body, the journalist told CPJ.
Nearby police officers rescued Chalika from the crowd, Chalika said, adding that he had not filed a case with police on advice from his lawyer, who is drafting papers to sue the club for damages. Chalika was treated at a local hospital for bruises and a sprained ankle.
“The Football Association of Malawi, as the national governing body of football, must ensure that it is not seen as condoning any violence on or outside the football pitch, especially when fans assault members of the press,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in Durban, South Africa. “There is precedent worldwide for soccer clubs to be held responsible for their fans’ conduct, including the deduction of league points, and Malawian football authorities must act accordingly.”
In their statement, MISA demanded disciplinary action against the club’s supporters who attacked Chalika and against head coach Hendrik Pieter de Jongh, who called several questions asked by reporters at a post-match press conference “stupid.”
A Silver Strikers media officer told CPJ via messaging app that MISA “handled the issue” but declined to comment further.
CPJ’s calls and messages to Gomezgani Zakazaka, the Football Association of Malawi’s communications and competitions manager, did not receive a response.
]]>On the morning of May 17, political activists attacked Mzindiko, a photographer with the privately owned Times Group newspaper, while he covered a fight between supporters of the ruling Malawi Congress Party and its allied United Transformation Movement in the city of Blantyre, according to media reports, a statement by the Malawi chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa regional press freedom group, and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ.
About 15 people in MCP party regalia approached Mzindiko after he filmed a fistfight between MCP and UTM supporters and demanded he delete his photos and video. When the journalist refused, they slapped him, grabbed his crotch, stole his camera’s lens, and deleted footage from his laptop and camera memory card.
On May 19, the MCP and Information Minister Moses Kikuyu each issued apologies over the incident, according to news reports.
“Authorities must ensure that those who assaulted journalist Francis Mzindiko are arrested and prosecuted, in order to send an unequivocal message that violence against journalists will not be condoned in Malawi,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “While apologies are welcome, they cannot absolve those in authority from acting swiftly and decisively.”
Mzindiko told CPJ that his camera lens had not been returned to him as of May 24, and that his camera was not functioning properly following the attack. He filed a police report shortly after the incident, he said.
President Lazarous Chakwera, who leads the MCP, and Vice President Saulos Chilima, who leads the UTM, both attended the event where Mzindiko was attacked.
In his statement, Kikuyu noted that he apologized in his capacity as the country’s information minister, and not as an MCP official. In a separate statement signed by MCP Publicity Secretary Ezekiel Peter Ching’oma and reviewed by CPJ, the party apologized and promised to help police identify the perpetrators.
CPJ called Ching’oma and sent him questions via messaging app but did not receive any replies. Malawi Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya also did not reply to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.
]]>On February 8, police in the capital Lilongwe summoned Mtenje via phone to appear the following day for questioning over a Maravi Post story she did not write or publish, according to news reports, a statement by the Malawi chapter of the regional press freedom body Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a bail form that CPJ reviewed, and a CPJ interview with the journalist. When Mtenje arrived at the station the next day, police detained her for 12 hours and charged her with defamation and offensive communication following a complaint by National Intelligence Service Director General Dokani Ngwira.
“The detention, confiscation of her phone, and charging of Malawian journalist Dorica Mtenje following a complaint from the country’s intelligence chief about an article that was not bylined and that she did not write is a fishing expedition to intimidate the press,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “We urge Malawian authorities to immediately drop the charges against Mtenje and ensure that criminal defamation is repealed, in the same way that sedition and insulting the president are no longer crimes in Malawi.”
On February 18, President Lazarus Chakwera assented to the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill of 2022, which repeals the crimes of sedition and insulting the president.
On February 9, Mtenje appeared at police headquarters in Lilongwe at around 8 a.m. and was formally charged and detained at about 5 p.m., according to a news report and the journalist. Mtenje said her mobile phone was confiscated but returned upon her release three hours later.
Her supervisor, Lloyd M’bwana, was also summoned for questioning over the same story but he did not appear, according to MISA, Mtenje, and M’bwana, who spoke to CPJ. M’bwana told CPJ he did not go because he did not receive an official summons, only a call from police.
Mtenje is charged with offensive communication, under to Section 87 of the Electronic Transactions and Cyber Security Act, and defamation, under Section 200 of the country’s penal code.
If found guilty of offensive communication, Mtenje faces up to a year in prison or a fine of 1 million Malawian kwacha (US$975), while the defamation charge carries an undefined fine, a two-year imprisonment, or both.
Mtenje told CPJ that she appeared before police on her own and was not accompanied by a lawyer.
“I asked the officer why they summoned me after showing me the story I didn’t even write, but I was told they suspect that me and my boss could have written it,” Mtenje told CPJ. “They took away my phone…at some point, one officer went away with it. It has no password.”
Information Minister Moses Kunkuyu told CPJ he had secured Mtenje’s release and that her case was “closed.” However, the officer who handled the matter claimed to be unaware of the closure after her release, according to Mtenje.
When reached by CPJ via messaging app, Ngwira said he had not made any complaints against a journalist, but he alleged thata tabloid had been writing “lies against my person and the National Intelligence Service without even a single attempt to seek our side of whatever they write.”
Ngwira said a police investigation was what led to the summoning and arrest of Mtenje. “I believe they are still investigating, and even for her to be released quickly was because MISA Malawi through their [chairperson] reached out,” he told CPJ.
Malawi Police Service spokesperson Peter Kalaya did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app. He is quoted by the MISA statement as saying police were only acting on a complaint by the National Intelligence Service Director.
]]>On March 30, the privately owned news website Platform for Investigative Journalism, where Gondwe works as the managing director, published an article alleging that the country’s attorney general had approved payments to a businessman for contracts that were previously cancelled due to alleged fraud.
On Tuesday, April 5, police in the commercial capital, Blantyre, detained Gondwe for about six hours and demanded he reveal his sources for that article, according to news reports, a statement by the local chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa press freedom group, and the journalist and his colleague Golden Matonga, both of whom spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Police also searched the PIJ’s office and confiscated Gondwe’s cellphone and laptop, forced him to disclose his passwords, and then returned his devices the following day, according to the journalist.
“Malawian authorities must respect journalist Gregory Gondwe’s right to cover corruption allegations freely, stop harassing him and his family, and drop any attempt to force him to reveal his confidential sources, who he is ethically bound to protect,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “The police should cease all attempts to criminalize investigative journalism and whistleblowing, and authorities should overhaul laws that are an impediment to press freedom.”
After the March 30 article was published, Gondwe said that Attorney General Thabo Nyirenda had asked him to disclose his sources and, when the journalist refused, said he would get the information by other means.
On Monday, police called Gondwe’s younger sister while she was traveling and told her to abandon her trip so they could question her; when his sister submitted to questioning, officers asked about Gondwe’s whereabouts, saying they wanted the journalist to lead them to a suspect in a crime, the journalist told CPJ.
Gondwe said that when he called the police and asked how they acquired his sister’s phone number, an officer said they had accessed their phone records, and reiterated that they wanted to speak with him about a criminal suspect.
The following day, Gondwe met a group of police officers at PIJ’s office, he said. He told CPJ he offered to bring the officers inside the office, but they declined and brought him to a nearby car, introduced him to other police officers, and showed him a court sanctioned warrant to search the premises and confiscate electronic devices in pursuit of the source for that March 30 story.
Gondwe told the police he would only speak to them in the presence of a lawyer; the officers proceeded to search the PIJ’s office and brought Gondwe to a local police station where he was held for about six hours, questioned in the presence of his lawyer, and then released without charge, he said.
When police returned his devices the following day, Gondwe said he could see that some of his emails and WhatsApp messages had been read.
“I am not sure of how much information they mined from the confiscated gadgets. Even when I am in the process of replacing them, I really don’t feel safe,” he told CPJ.
Gondwe’s lawyer, Joseph Lihoma, told CPJ by messaging app that his client had not been charged, but police were still investigating the case.
The warrant for the April 5 search, which CPJ reviewed, states that Gondwe is accused of spamming, pertaining to the illegal transmission of information online, under Section 91 of the Electronic Transaction and Cyber Security Act of 2016, which carries a fine of 2 million Malawian kwacha (about US$2,500) or imprisonment of up to five years for convictions.
Nyirenda told CPJ via messaging app that he had apologized for Gondwe’s detention and questioning, and that he had no idea police were going to detain the journalist and confiscate his devices.
When asked about Gondwe’s claim that Nyirenda had threatened to find other means to disclose the journalist’s sources, Nyirenda said that was “water under the bridge.”
In a statement, the Media Institute of Southern Africa also said that Nyirenda had apologized, and that he had committed to a government review of archaic laws that restricted media freedom.
Nyirenda told CPJ that he did not have the power to make police drop their investigation into Gondwe, saying, “All I can do as attorney general is to appeal to them to drop those investigations and allow the press to enjoy their freedom.”
Police spokesperson James Kadadzera said in statement that Gondwe had not been arrested but had been ”interviewed” in connection to an ongoing investigation into that news article and other related issues.
Kadadzera told CPJ via messaging app that he could not disclose further details about the case to avoid jeopardizing the legal process. He said he was unaware of Gondwe’s suspicions that his devices were tampered with while in police custody.
Chief government spokesperson Gospel Kazako said the government would investigate the circumstances of Gondwe’s detention, according to reports.
]]>On the morning of June 30, police officers beat and briefly detained Oliver Malibisa, a reporter with the local Likoma Community Radio broadcaster, as he tried to cover a student demonstration at Likoma Secondary School in central Malawi, according to the journalist, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, and news reports.
“The assault and detention of journalist Oliver Malibisa by Malawi police was an attack on press freedom, and impunity for such acts sends an even more worrying message about journalist safety in the country,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York “Journalists must be free to report on issues of public interest, like protests, without fear of violence or harassment.”
Malibisa told CPJ that an officer named Prosecutor Nyirenda hit him in the chest with a gun and told him to stop filming the demonstration.
Malibisa told CPJ that he continued filming, and then about five other officers “joined in harassing me. They started dragging me while shouting, ‘You are stupid, why are you here? Give us your phone.’ I complied and gave them the phone.”
The officers used pepper spray on Malibisa and drove him to the Likoma Police Station, where he was held for two hours, he said. He was released without charge, and his phone was returned on the order of the senior officer at the station, according to Malibisa and a statement posted on Facebook by the local chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a regional media freedom organization.
Malibisa told CPJ that while he was in detention, he asked to be able to use his phone to contact Likoma Community Radio manager Davie Kacholola or MISA-Malawi, but the police ignored his requests.
Kacholola told CPJ via messaging app that “the matter was sorted out, everything is normal,” but he did not elaborate when asked for more details. Malibisa told CPJ he wanted an apology from the police.
Malawi Police Service spokesperson James Kadadzera did not respond to CPJ’s phone calls or questions sent via messaging app. CPJ was unable to find contact information for Nyirenda.
Previously, in April, Malawi police briefly detained Nyasa Times news website reporter Watipaso Mzungu and Joy Radio reporter Enock Balakasi, as CPJ documented at the time.
]]>In that article, Mzungu quoted a local activist who referred to President Lazarus Chakwera as “a joker” and a “time waster” in relation to a proposed reshuffling of his cabinet. On April 5, a police officer called Mzungu and said he was wanted for questioning the following day; the officer did not specify the nature of the questioning, and told Mzungu not to bring a lawyer, the journalist told CPJ.
During questioning at the Lilongwe police headquarters, officers said that the article constituted a criminal insult of the president and an attempt to undermine the authority of the head of state, according to Mzungu and a report by the Nyasa Times. The interrogation lasted about two hours, after which Mzungu was released unconditionally after giving a statement in which he stood by the article, according to Mzungu and a local news report.
During the interrogation, officers asked Mzungu about the April 2 article, his motivations for writing it, and whether he had manipulated the activist’s statements to attract public attention, the journalist told CPJ, adding that he had not manipulated those statements.
The officers also demanded that Mzungu give them the unedited draft of his April 2 story, as well as the activist’s original statement, he said. Mzungu told CPJ that the officers did not allow him to contact his lawyer or editor, and he complied with the officers’ request because he did not want to prolong the interrogation.
Malawi Police Service spokesperson James Kadadzera told CPJ by phone that Mzungu was neither detained nor summoned for questioning and that he had merely been “invited for an interview” over an ongoing investigation. He said the journalist had cooperated with the police and was released unconditionally.
Malawi Police Inspector-General George Kainja implied during a press briefing on April 7 that the activist quoted in the article, Sylvester Namiwa, the head of the nongovernmental Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiative, was under investigation for his comments in that article, according to Nyasa Times.
Namiwa was quoted by the Nyasa Times in that report as saying that he did not fear arrest as “Malawi is no longer a one-party state which was characterized by rule of darkness, fear and death.”
The local chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, a regional press freedom group, said in a statement on April 6 that it was concerned about the continued “arbitrary summoning, arrests and detentions of journalists” and criticized the police for “attacking media freedom.”
Separately, on April 2, police detained Enock Balakasi, a reporter for the privately owned broadcaster Joy Radio, for more than two hours after he photographed police who had responded to an attempted suicide in Kawale, a suburb of Lilongwe, according to the Media Institute’s statement and Balakasi, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
The police accused Balakasi of photographing them without permission, and deleted photos from his phone, according to that statement.
Police charged Balakasi with conduct likely to cause a breach of peace, obstructing police officers on duty, and working without permission from the police, but then dropped those charges after interrogating him and released him unconditionally, he told CPJ.
]]>On January 22, a group of at least seven police officers in the Old Town area of Lilongwe, the capital, attacked Mhango, a freelance reporter who contributes to the U.K. daily The Telegraph, with pipes and sticks after he asked permission to photograph them enforcing COVID-19 regulations, according to a report by the Malawi Voice news website and Mhango, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.
“Authorities in Malawi should investigate and hold accountable the police officers responsible for beating journalist Henry Kijimwana Mhango,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, in Nairobi. “Journalists are far too often attacked for reporting on the enforcement of COVID-19-related restrictions. The pandemic is difficult enough for journalists without having to worry that they will be assaulted while on the job.”
Mhango told CPJ that he was returning from the Kamuzu Central Hospital when he noticed police officers beating people for not wearing face masks, as required under a government directive. He said he approached an officer to ask permission to take pictures for a story he was preparing about COVID-19, and the officer called the journalist “stupid” and criticized him for asking the question.
Mhango said he apologized and began to leave, when the officer attacked him with a pipe. At least six other officers quickly joined in, hitting Mhango in his ribs, buttocks, and shoulders with pipes and sticks for several minutes, he told CPJ.
He said the beating only stopped after another officer intervened and allowed him to run away, and onlookers helped him board a bus to his house.
The journalist went to a local hospital later that day for treatment for his injuries, but a nurse said he should file a police report before being treated, he said. He told CPJ that when he went to a police station, the officers there said it was too late in the day.
Mhango told CPJ today that he continues to feel pain in his ribs, and had not been able to file a police report or receive medical treatment.
Police spokesperson James Kadadzera told CPJ by phone that he had apologized to the journalist and to Malawi’s chapter of the Media Institute of South Africa, a local press freedom group that had condemned the attack. He said police were working with Mhango to identify and hold accountable the police officers responsible; Mhango told CPJ today that the police had called him once, on January 22, but had not contacted him again.
CPJ called and texted Malawian Information Minister Gospel Kazako for comment, but did not receive any responses.
]]>