During the April 2015 Togolese presidential elections, information and blogging sites that relayed the counting of votes and the announcement of results in the country were censored.
During the period, it was difficult to access websites to get updates on the election. Similarly, site administrators in Togo were unable to update their websites.
The MFWA’s correspondent in Togo reported that this seeming act of censorship was a result of an allegation that websites considered close to the opposition, such as afrikaexpress.info, letempstg.com, togoelection2015.com, icilome.com, letogovi.com, togoactualite.com, togocity.fr, togosite.com, togoinfos.com, were being paid off to give -unofficial, incorrect election figures to create confusion among the people.
This allegation followed disagreements between the opposition and ruling parties on the announcements of election results from localities in northern Togo.
According to the correspondent, internet connections in the country became slow and unstable throughout the country during the elections.
“The connection was very slow and did not encourage sustained work on the internet,” the correspondent said. “During this period, you could wait more than thirty minutes until a site opened and if it opened, the connection would cut off a few seconds or minutes after and not possible to work.”
Whereas many believe it was an act of censorship, government sources blamed the internet issues on “technical problems”.