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

Within weeks of the announcement, use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass the restrictions surged in the central African country. When gendarmerie began stopping young men at road checkpoints in the capital Libreville and other urban centres to confiscate mobile phones with VPNs installed or detain the owners, warnings spread by word of mouth. Activists and opposition members said their accounts were also suspended due to efforts of state officials.

Social media had helped citizens convene and stay informed since December, when workers in the education and health sectors protested over pay and the cost of living crisis. The government cited misinformation, disinformation, pornographic content, and incitement to hatred as reasons for the shutdown.

Rights groups have urged authorities to follow due process to prosecute any offenders, rather than collective punishment through unconstitutional restriction of freedom of expression.

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

Nelly Ngabima, a controversial activist also known as Princesse de Souba, said she received threats from Gabonese government officials that they would make her “disappear from social networks”. Within a couple of months, her accounts with a combined following of over 300,000 across Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, had been suspended.

“They create fake accounts and they put our identities on those accounts, then they report us for identity theft,” she said. “Today, Gabonese people even struggle to send a WhatsApp message because they are afraid. They do not even go out with their phones.”

The restrictions were temporarily lifted in April. However, a new regulation passed in February mandates social media users to provide verified names, addresses and ID numbers. Social networks are at risk of 50m central African CFA franc (£66,000) fines and prison terms for non-compliance.

The law is one of a number of far-reaching changes to codify a crackdown on dissent including a controversial new nationality code signed in February and published last month. The code has come under criticism from those who say it restricts the rights of naturalised citizens and makes it easier for the state to strip citizens of their nationality.

“What is being said here and there, in my view and humble opinion, concerns not so much the substance of the debate as its form,” said government spokesperson Charles Edgard Mombo, suggesting that any criticism was merely because the code had gone into force before parliamentary ratification. He cited article 99 of Gabon’s constitution which mandates parliament to ratify ordinances signed by the president during times of urgency.

Former prime minister and opposition leader Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who filed a suit challenging the restrictions in a Libreville court, was arrested in April for alleged fraud and breach of trust in an old case from 2008. His supporters say the charges are trumped-up.

Ngabima was a Gabonese intelligence operative between 2015 and 2019, whose roles included tapping phones and monitoring messages of politicians and the military until she left the country. Now based in France, she is warning that her experience provided her with an awareness of the regime’s capacity to surveil those considered dissidents.

Gabon, a country with a huge youth population, is an oil-rich nation but a third of the population live in deep poverty, and nepotism and corruption are common. It also has a well-documented history of cracking down on dissent. The penultimate internet shutdown happened in August 2023, just before a disputed election that Ali Bongo won. The internet was restored four days later, after the military removed Bongo and put him under house arrest.

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

However, his critics say he has long been part of the inner caucus of power, as a Bongo relative and part of the security architecture, and is now using the same draconian copybook as his predecessors, especially their opaque management of the economy.

“Today Gabonese people still die of hunger, have no jobs and struggle to get medical treatment … all that already existed during Ali Bongo’s time,” said Ngabima. “In reality, strictly speaking, nothing has changed. You cannot remove Mr Ali Bongo because you condemned certain behaviours and then arrive and reproduce the same. That is not possible.”