Dr Stella Nyanzi Chooses Jail Over Bail, Sent To Luzira

Makerere University research fellow Dr Stella Nyanzi has been sent back to Luzira after turning down an opportunity to apply for bail.

Dr Nyanzi who pleaded not guilty to charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication, said she wasn’t interested in applying for bail but instead wants to be taken back to Luzira prison, because she’s on a mission to teach inmates how to use social media.

She was therefore remanded until November 22 by magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu.

Dr Nyanzi was recently arrested after posting a provocative birthday poem to President Yoweri Museveni on September 16, 2018, a day after Museveni’s 74th birthday.

The poem which was posted on Nyanzi’s social media page was crafted in vulgarity seemingly targeted at the president’s late mother Esteeri Kokundeka.

Prosecution contends that on September 16, 2018…Nyanzi used a computer to post statements wishing that Museveni should have died at the time of his birth. Prosecution adds that Nyanzi, willfully and repeatedly used electronic communication to post similar messages which disturbed the peace, quiet or right of privacy of President Museveni.

Nyanzi pleaded not guilty to the charges. However, she said that as a poetess, she used the metaphor to portray her criticism against the ruling National Resistance Movement government. She adds that she found it ridiculous that the president would be offended by a poem that made reference to his late mother.

“I don’t want to waste the court’s time; I deny the charges. I want Museveni to come to court, face me into my eyes and tell me how my posts on Facebook have offended him,” Nyanzi stated.

Instead, Nyanzi said she wants President Museveni to come to court and confess that he reads her poems and gets offended by them.

“I have written a lot about Mr Museveni and I don’t see what I faulted to say that his mother Esteri who is even a dead woman as we speak should killed him at birth looking at what he has done done to the Ugandans your worship. I speak for many people and I plead not guilty on this count,” Nyanzi added.