Uganda’s High Court Releases Activist Stella Nyanzi After 18 Months in Prison

The High court in Uganda under Judge Henry Peter Adonyo on Thursday, 20^th, 2020 released Feminist, activist Stella Nyanzi after a guilty sentence of 18 months in Luzira prison for abusing the Vagina of President Museveni’s mother.

Stella Nyanzi is a Ugandan activist known for her long time hatred over the ruling party, she has attacked President Museveni severally but her vaginal poem got on his nerves.

In this poem, Stella Nyanzi abuses the Vagina of the mother of president Museveni, she says her vagina is cursed, something that the president found so disrespectful and ordered for her immediate arrest.

The poem reads:

Yoweri, they say it was your birthday yesterday,

How nauseatingly disgusting a day!

I wish the acidic pus flooding Esiteri’s [Museveni’s mother’s] cursed vaginal canal had burnt up your unborn fetus,

Burnt you up as badly as you corroded all morality and professionalism out of our public institutions in Uganda.

The academic writer, Stella wrote this poem in 2017, people and lawyers close to the president say this poem disturbed the peace, dignity, and authority of the president of the Republic of Uganda.

Therefore on 10^th, April 2018, Stella Nyanzi was found guilty by the Lower court and sentenced to 18 months in prison, charged with cybercrime, computer misuse, and presidential abuse.

Stella Nyanzi’s lawyers tried but unsuccessfully failed to prove her innocence to bring the trial to a brief end. However, while at court, Nyanzi’s defense team exchanged a couple of wordings with Opwonya, lawyer, and member of the Anti-pornographic committee in Uganda.

The wordings went as follows:

Q: Is Vagina a dirty word?

Opwonya: Most of the times it is.

Q: Is the literal Vagina a clean thing.

Opwonya: Yes.

Q: Can a vagina be dirty?

Opwonya: Yes, if you don’t wash it.

Fortunately, high court judge Henry Peter Adonyo on Thursday, 20^th, 2020 said Nyanzi’s right to a fair trial was violated because magistrates denied her the right to identify, prepare and call defense witnesses. Therefore he decides to set her free.

Stella Nyanzi a mother of three before the conviction was working with Makerere University, Uganda’s most influential Government University, this cybercrime blander costed her job. Though she didn’t mind.

Stella Nyanzi was last month awarded the Oxfam Novib/PEN International award for freedom of expression.

In 2017, Nyanzi spent 33 days in prison for a Facebook post in which she described Museveni as a “pair of buttocks”, after the president backtracked on a pledge to distribute sanitary towels to schoolgirls.

Stella previously branded the first lady, who is also education minister, “empty-brained”. She was acquitted of a charge of offensive communication.

After the ruling upon her release, Nyanzi said: “Why was I in court for all these months? Why is the current regime of Uganda oppressing Ugandans who are expressing their constitutional rights? I am the voice of the opposition of Uganda.

“Museveni must go. Yoweri Museveni, you are on notice. I give you notice, Museveni. You can do whatever you want. We are ready for you, Museveni. We are tired. Stop oppressing Ugandans,” she said.

“It’s important for us the opposition to find bases of unity that is going to help us in our solidarity against the current regime.” Stella added

“Why was I in prison because I wrote a poem? Because I expressed my deep disinterest and disgust of the NRM [National Resistance Movement] regime? Nyanzi lamented.

“Is it because I told the current illegal president of Uganda that I really want him to go? Museveni is sending so many opposition activists to prisons – for what?” she concluded.

She, Stella is famous for her boldness and fearlessness towards the president and the military. Indeed her release has empowered activists in Uganda even more especially men because if a woman can stand to challenge power, challenge places of power, then as men better can be done.

Written by Erica Nsunjo