144 Dictating the Internet: IV. Patterns of abuse While the laws and their implementation as outlined in this report reflect particular legal systems and must be understood in their national contexts, a number of important commonalities emerge, revealing a pattern of abuse across the region. In many instances, the legal provisions themselves are not human rights compliant, and these deficiencies are exacerbated by the manner in which they have been implemented. Legal frameworks have thus been abused systematically to curtail the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and information, and other human rights and fundamental freedoms, online. i. “National security” and “public order” The first commonality is that the laws covered in this report often conflate national security, public order and related themes with the perceived interests of the government or other powerful actors. There is often further conflation with protection against offence or insult to the reputation or dignity of individual representatives of the State – including State officials, the head of State or the monarch, or organs of the State, including the judiciary. The laws and regulations are riddled with vague, imprecise language, in contravention of the principle of legality. This leaves them open to arbitrary application across a wide range of circumstances, with substantial discretion given to officials with little accountability. In many of the cases referenced in this report, individuals have been detained, investigated, charged, prosecuted and/or convicted of offences, even where a specific, narrow link between the act of online expression of an individual and its “real, identifiable risk of significant harm” to a “legitimate security interest” has not been shown,573 or where the information they revealed online should be protected expression because they concern matters of “public debate concerning public figures in the political domain and public institutions”.574 It is clear from the classes of individuals and legal persons who have been targeted that laws have been misused to control political and other critical debate online in order to protect the interests of powerful individuals or institutions. Those targeted with prosecution had all expressed or revealed 573 Tshwane Principle 3. 574 CCPR/C/GC/34, para 38.