Over the past five years, the government has used the charge of defamation of the president and elaborate legal arguments to arrest a number of critical opposition leaders, human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and other people simply for peacefully exercising their human rights. While the Constitution provides that the President can neither sue nor be sued, the offence of defamation of the President empowers the state to bring charges against critics of the President. The use of criminal defamation has thus been preferred by the authorities because it enables the government to suppress the right to freedom of expression under the guise of protecting state officials. By arresting critics, the government, in effect, sends a chilling message to other people...