Ugandan Activist Stella Nyanzi Decries Mistreatment After Undressing In Court
Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi. /Courtesy
Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi has on Friday filed a complaint against the prisons over mistreatment as well as failure to produce her in court for her sentencing.
Ms Nyanzi was sentenced to 18 months in prison for referring to President Yoweri Museveni as a “pair of buttocks.”
The former Makerere University lecturer attended the sentencing last Friday via a video link and was acquitted of one of the charges of offensive communication.
Read: Ugandan Activist Stella Nyanzi Strips During Her Sentencing
The charge was based on a poem which she wrote that was considered vulgar by the Ugandan authorities.
According to the letter seen by Kahawa Tungu, through her lawyer, Dr Nyanzi noted that the prisons authorities have subjected her to punishment without due process, therefore, exposing her to abuse while in prison.
According to Ugandan multimedia journalist and Pan-African feminist, Rosebell Kagumire, the Prisons Public Relations officer informed the media that the prisons would punish Stella over her conduct during her sentencing.
Today Dr Stella Nyanzi's lawyer filed a complaint against the prisons failure to produce her in court for sentencing. The video link to court on August was transmitted from a studio in the male section of the prison which Stella objected. #FreeStellaNyanzi pic.twitter.com/rT8F8bvFat
— Rosebell Kagumire (@RosebellK) August 9, 2019
During her sentencing activist, Nyanzi created drama as she stripped leaving her breasts exposed.
However, she was not physically presented in court instead she attended the sentencing via a video link.
Stella Nyanzi @drstellanyanzi is on a screen rather than physically in the court room, but she just flashed her breasts on camera after shouting again and again “fuck you, fuck you” #FreeStellaNyanzi #PushforStellaNyanzi pic.twitter.com/Gwi6bgNzTy
— Alice McCool (@McCoolingtons) August 2, 2019
The video link to court on August was transmitted from a studio in the male section of the prison which Stella objected to, according to Ms Kagumire.
A few days ago the Prisons Public Relations officer told media that the prisons would punish Stella over her conduct during her sentencing. Making prisoners appear before courts via video links is being challenged as a tool being used to violate rights. #FreeStellaNyanzi
— Rosebell Kagumire (@RosebellK) August 9, 2019
Nyanzi has been detained in jail since November 2018, and Amnesty International wants the ruling overturned saying that it kills the freedom of expression in Uganda.
“This verdict is outrageous and flies in the face of Uganda’s obligations to uphold the right to freedom of expression… and demonstrates the depths of the government’s intolerance of criticism,” said Amnesty’s East Africa Director Joan Nyanyuki as quoted by the BBC.
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