‘Blatant disregard for rights’: concern grows over Gabon’s social media clampdown | Gabon

When Gabon’s media regulator indefinitely suspended major social media platforms in February, citing security concerns during anti-government protests, it literally became the talk of the town.

A few weeks after the announcement, the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass restrictions increased in the Central African country. Warnings spread by word of mouth as the gendarmerie began stopping young men at road checkpoints in the capital Libreville and other urban centers to seize VPN-loaded mobile phones or detain their owners. Activists and opposition members also said their accounts were suspended due to the efforts of state authorities.

Social media has helped citizens come together and stay informed since December, when workers in the education and health sectors protested the wage and cost of living crisis. The government cited misinformation, disinformation, pornographic content and incitement to hatred as reasons for the closure.

Rights groups have called on authorities to follow due process to prosecute offenders rather than impose collective punishment through unconstitutional restrictions on freedom of expression.

“This continued deliberate interference with access to essential digital communications platforms in Gabon is a blatant disregard for people’s fundamental rights, especially the right to freedom of expression and access to information,” said Felicia Anthonio, campaign manager for the #KeepItOn coalition, a global alliance of hundreds of human rights groups.

Controversial activist Nelly Ngabima, also known as Princesse de Souba, said she received threats from Gabonese government officials that they would “eliminate her from social networks”. Within a few months, his accounts with more than 300,000 followers combined on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok were suspended.

“They open fake accounts and put our identities in those accounts, and then they report us for identity theft,” he said. “Nowadays, Gabonese people have difficulty even sending a WhatsApp message because they are afraid. They do not even go out with their phones.”

Restrictions were temporarily lifted in April. However, a new regulation passed in february Requires social media users to provide verified names, addresses and identification numbers. The social networks face a 50 million Central African CFA franc (£66,000) fine and jail time for non-compliance.

The law is one of a series of sweeping changes that will codify a crackdown on dissent, including a controversial new citizenship law signed in February and published last month. The law has been criticized by those who say it restricts the rights of naturalized citizens and makes it easier for the state to strip citizens of their citizenship.

“What has been said here and there, in my view and in my humble opinion, concerns the form of the debate, not its substance,” said government spokesman Charles Edgard Mombo, suggesting that any criticism stemmed only from the fact that the law came into force before parliamentary approval. He cited Article 99 of the Gabon constitution, which gives parliament the power to approve decrees signed by the president in emergency situations.

Former prime minister and opposition leader Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who filed a lawsuit challenging the restrictions in a Libreville court, was arrested in April on allegations of fraud and breach of trust in an old case from 2008. His supporters say the accusations are fabricated.

Ngabima was a Gabonese intelligence agent between 2015 and 2019. Their duties included tapping phones and monitoring messages from politicians and the military until they left the country. Now living in France, he warns that his experience has made him aware of the regime’s capacity to spy on those deemed dissidents.

Gabon, a country with a large youth population, is oil-rich but a third of the population lives in deep poverty and nepotism and corruption are rife. It also has a well-documented history of cracking down on dissent. The penultimate internet outage occurred in August 2023, just before the controversial election won by Ali Bongo. Internet was restored four days after the military dismissed Bongo and placed him under house arrest.

General Brice Oligui Nguema presented himself as a different kind of leader after coming to power that same month to end 56 years of Bongo family rule. The 2025 presidential election, which he won with over 90% of the vote, was particularly more open to media scrutiny than previous elections under Bongo, as foreign media were allowed to film the vote count.

But his critics say he has long been a Bongo relative and part of the inner ruling group as part of the security architecture, and now uses the same ruthless copybook as his predecessors, particularly opaque management of the economy.

“Today, Gabonese people are still starving, unemployed and struggling to get medical treatment…all of these were already present in Ali Bongo’s time,” Ngabima said. “Nothing has really changed. You cannot sack Mr. Ali Bongo because you condemned certain behavior and then come back and repeat the same thing. That is not possible.”