Riyaz Patel
A prominent Ugandan academic has been jailed for 18 months on charges stemming from a Facebook post that included sexually explicit criticism of long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni.
The verdict drew the ire of rights activists who accused the government of using laws about electronic communications to stifle political dissent.
Stella Nyanzi, a university lecturer and researcher who once called Museveni “a pair of buttocks,” has drawn the government’s wrath for her attacks on the president whose been in power for 33 years.
Her commentary, laced with profanity, is posted on her Facebook page and often shared widely by her followers.
She attended her sentencing session in a court in the center of the capital Kampala via video link from a maximum security prison on the shores of Lake Victoria.
The presiding judge was hit a plastic bottle after announcing the sentence.
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