Merxcine Cush
Justice Chacha Mwita has temporarily suspended 27 sections of computer and cyber crimes Act which was scheduled to take effect two weeks after the president assented to it on May 14.
The Kenya bloggers association of Kenya, Article 19 and the Kenya union of journalists had said that the legislation was unconstitutional and went against a court ruling that was made by the high court in February 2017.
Read: ICT Ministry Sets Stringent Regulations For ‘Fake News’ Distributors
The Bloggers association of Kenya said that the new laws have provisions that deny, infringe and threaten freedom of expression, freedom of the media, the right to privacy and the right to a fair hearing.
They said that the regulations would revert them back to the repealed section 29 of the Kenya Information and Communication Act and Section 194 of the penal code.
Article 19 which a non governmental organisation that protects the freedom of expression stated that the suspended sections were ambiguous and could not be easily interpreted therefore giving a lot of room for misinterpretation.
The NGO also noted that the National computer and cyber crimes coordination committee only consisted of the male gender therefore did not achieve the two thirds gender rule.
They said that a myriad of young people earned their living from online content creation and the laws gagging then would be greatly detrimental.
The laws were drafted to nab offenses such as cyber bullying, hacking and spreading of fake news, child pornography
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