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Court voids conviction of Ugandan academic known for crude attacks on president
Ugandan prominent academic Stella Nyanzi is seen inside Buganda Road Court where she was charged with cybercrimes after posting profanity-filled denunciations of President Yoweri Museveni on Facebook, in Kampala, Uganda, June 26, 2019. PHOTO BY REUTERS/James Akena
By Elias Biryabarema
20/02/2020
KAMPALA (Reuters) - A Ugandan court on Thursday quashed the conviction and jail term meted out to a popular academic over her profanity- and vulgarity-laced criticism of President Yoweri Museveni, ruling she did not get a fair trial.
Stella Nyanzi, 45, a university lecturer, author and mother of three, has for years earned a huge following for her attacks on Museveni, often via Facebook posts, over his decades-old grip on power and crackdowns on dissent.
In August last year, a magistrate's court convicted her on charges of cyber-harassment and sentenced her to 18 months in jail, which she subsequently appealed.
Appeals judge Henry Peter Adonyo vacated her conviction on Thursday after accepting Nyanzi's argument that she did not get a fair hearing and trial in violation of the constitution. He also said the lower court had no jurisdiction to try the case.
Adonyo also faulted the lower court for, among other shortcomings, rejecting Nyanzi's plea to summon some witnesses and not giving her enough time to prepare her defence.
"Why was I in prison for more than one year? I want to know. What is wrong with courts which abuse...the rights and freedoms that are constitutionally provided for?" Nyanzi said after the decision.
A scuffle with her supporters ensued as prison officers tried to hustle Nyanzi back to jail for reasons not made clear.
She fainted during the melee and supporters picked her up and took her outside the court compound. Security personnel fired tear gas to disperse a small crowd that gathered as the disturbance unfolded.
A prisons service spokesman could not be contacted for comment on why officers tried to return Nyanzi to jail.
Rights activists and opposition supporters who had come to witness the hearing shouted opposition slogans after the ruling.
The charges against Nyanzi stemmed from a Facebook post in 2018 in which she denounced Museveni as a pair of buttocks, among other crude invective.
(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Omar Mohammed and Mark Heinrich)
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