Is Stella Nyanzi ‘weaponizing the vagina'?

Latest news regarding Stella Nyanzi's imprisoned

On Friday, June 21, a court in Uganda's capital, Kampala, decided that imprisoned women's activist researcher and lobbyist Dr. Stella Nyanzi has a case to reply and ought to get ready to safeguard herself. The case springs from a sonnet by Nyanzi — a reflection on the birth and mismanagement of Uganda's long-serving President Yoweri Museveni, in which she summons portrayals of vaginas, including his mother's.

On Wednesday, June 19, 2019, investigators had shut their case after introducing three observers. Nyanzi's legal advisor at that point requested that the court announce that there is no case to reply and requested Nyanzi's discharge.

But on June 21, 2019, the courts decided that Nyanzi does have to answer to these charges and will not yet be released and reunited with her three children.

Nyanzi, known to deploy radical rudeness and public insult as a tactic to challenge Museveni's power, has been held at Luzira maximum security prison since November 2018.

Nyanzi faces two counts of cyber harassment and offensive communication, each under the Computer Misuse Act of 2011.

In count one, prosecutors alleged that Nyanzi, in a Facebook post dated Sept 16, 2018, made “obscene, lewd and indecent suggestions” with her vagina references assumed cyber harassment.

In count two, the state claims she transmitted the post “over the internet to disturb the peace, quiet or right to privacy of President Museveni with no purpose of legitimate communication” — deemed offensive communication.

Nyanzi's attorneys submitted to the court that there was no case to reply after the investigators created three observers: two researching officers in the Uganda police, and legal counselor Charles Dalton Opwonya, as an individual from Uganda's Anti-Pornography Committee, made an improbable master observer.

Nyanzi's continuous preliminary before Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu has been a standout amongst the most animated on record. Opwonya was the observer that became the dominant focal point as he was consigned by Nyanzi's insurgency group to showcase his ability in matters of ethical quality:

On June 18, in an interrogation that took over six hours, Opwonya insisted Nyanzi’s post on Museveni’s birthday — from which the attacks stem — harmed and broke his children’s integrity.

He said Nyanzi was " a disgusting subject" since her bare challenge in 2016 at Makerere University. Opwonya was cross-examined on a scope of issues associated with the case, from Bible axioms to naked dissents, to women's activist writing to the topic of whether Uganda's leader is a dictator.

Nyanzi's strategies in her reporting about the powerful, similar to dysphemism and code words, were brought into play. Opwonya censured Nyanzi for being disgusting and told the court that the word vagina to never be spoken openly.

Who is Stella Nyanzi?

Stella Nyanzi is a Ugandan medical anthropologist, feminist, queer rights activist, and scholar of sexuality, family planning, and public health. Stella Nyanzi did her Bachelor degree of Arts in Mass Communication and Literature at Makerere University where she studied from 1993 to 1996. She completed her Master of Science in Medical Anthropology at University College London.She completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she studied social anthropology, sexuality, and youth and health policy from 2003 to 2008.

She has done a lot of research on youth sexuality in Uganda, and also in The Gambia in 2005

Stella Nyanzi arrested

Nyanzi, 43, was arrested in November 2018 in the wake of composing a poem condemning of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and posting it to her Facebook page. The poem declares that Uganda would have been exceptional off had Museveni kicked the bucket at birth and incorporates a few profane depictions of the vagina and clitoris of Museveni's perished mother. Nyanzi's Facebook page right now has 207,895 devotees.

The state says Nyanzi deliberately bugged and embarrassed the president with her poem and has accused her of damaging the Computer Misuse Act segments on digital provocation and "disgusting, obscene, lecherous or profane" content generation. In spite of the fact that Uganda's law does not demonstrate exceptional arrangements for analysis of the president, worldwide free articulation convention prescribes expanded assurances for basic speech focusing on government authorities. 

Nyanzi has stayed at Luzira jail in Kampala, the capital, for more than 180 days. In spite of the fact that she was offered discharged on safeguard, she dismissed it, expressing that her opportunity would just be a hallucination with the case as yet pending. She faces a one-year jail sentence whenever indicted.

"Leaving prison without knowing your fate is a total disturbance. It's an illusion of freedom. I am now enjoying it here and feel like I am on leave because I am not doing anything," Nyanzi said in an interview with URN in Luzira. 

‘Radical rudeness’

Stella Nyanzi has worked as a teacher of Medical Anthropology at Makerere Institute for Social Research with an emphasis on sex and sexuality. As a strange artist and researcher, she utilizes representations and harsh speech in her messages on human rights, the opportunity of articulation and eccentric woman's rights. 

Known for her "radical inconsiderateness" and affinity for testing power through affront, Nyanzi has been captured on different events, additionally for offending the president. These strategies pursue a long history of social activism in Uganda going back to the 1940s under British frontier rule. Ugandan activists purposefully evaluated provincial requests through conscious, untidy, unpleasant impoliteness as an approach to assault and disturb British social standards. 

In 2017, Nyanzi dealt with comparable indictments in what is known as the "pair of rear end" case, when she considered the president these words and furthermore focused on his significant other for being "vacant brained." 

That is the thing, that backside do. They shake, wiggle, poop, and fart. Museveni is simply one more pair of the bottom, Ugandans ought to be stunned that we enabled these posterior to keep driving our nation. 

Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, neglected to convey on a battle guarantee to give sterile cushions to all students before the 2016 decisions. Nyanzi studied this and other advancement disappointments under Museveni's initiative through her viral talk via web-based networking media.