Uganda charges, jails academic for insulting the president

A prominent academic in Uganda was remanded to a maximum-security prison today after being charged with insulting the country's longtime president.

Stella Nyanzi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Uganda's Makerere University, was charged with cyber harassment and offensive communication today.

She denied the charges and said President Yoweri Museveni is a "dishonorable" man who has "offended the people of Uganda."

Amnesty International urged Ugandan authorities to free Nyanzi, a single mother of three.

"Arresting Nyanzi simply for criticising the president and his wife serves no legitimate purpose," Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's regional director, said in a statement.

The charge sheet said Nyanzi had referred to Museveni as "a pair of buttocks" in one of her Facebook posts.
 

In remarks before a packed courtroom in the capital, Kampala, Nyanzi said she often writes metaphorically in her efforts to "speak truth to power.