Stella Nyanzi is in prison for criticizing a guy.

A prominent Ugandan academic has bared her breasts and screamed obscenities in protest as a magistrate sentenced her to 18 months’ prison on controversial charges of “harassing” President Yoweri Museveni.

The verdict against Stella Nyanzi on Friday drew the ire of rights activists who accused the government of using laws about electronic communications to stifle political dissent.

Nyanzi, a university lecturer and researcher who once called Museveni “a pair of buttocks”, is expected to serve nine months in prison after having already spent nine months behind bars.

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A second charge of “offensive communication” was dropped against Nyanzi, who has vowed not to relent in her barbed criticism of Uganda’s long-serving ruler.

“I planned to offend Yoweri Museveni Kaguta, because he has offended us for 30 plus years,” she told the courtroom on Thursday before being found guilty.

“We are tired of a dictatorship.”

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In a statement on Friday, Joan Nyanyuki, director for East Africa at human rights group Amnesty International, said: “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.”

The verdict should be quashed and Nyanzi, who has been in jail since November last year, freed immediately, she said.

English Pen:

Earlier this month, writer and academic Dr Stella Nyanzi was convicted of cyber harassment in relation to a poem she shared on Facebook. She is now serving 18 months in prison. Join us in sending her letters and books and calling on Uganda to #FreeStellaNyanzi.