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Dr Stella Nyanzi, a queer feminist writer, activist and research fellow at the Makerere Institute for Social Research in Uganda, has been imprisoned in Uganda for allegedly insulting President Yoweri Museveni on social media.
Nyanzi has been charged with “cyber harassment and offensive communication” under the country’s Computer Misuse Act of 2011. She was arrested after she published a provocative poem on her Facebook page on September 16, the day after the president’s 74th birthday. It expressed the view that Uganda would have been better off had Museveni died at birth.
The academic has pleaded not guilty and is currently being detained at Luzira Prison in Kampala. She faces a penalty of a year’s imprisonment.