“Stella Nyanzi has been criminalized solely for her creative flair of using metaphors and what may be considered insulting language to criticize President Museveni’s leadership. The mere fact that forms of expression are considered insulting to a public figure is not sufficient ground to penalize anyone. Public officials, including those exercising the highest political authority, are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition.

“This verdict is outrageous and flies in the face of Uganda’s obligations to uphold the right to freedom of expression for all people in Uganda and demonstrates the depths of the government’s intolerance of criticism. It must be quashed and Stella Nyanzi, who has already suffered enormously for expressing her opinions, let to get on with her life.

“The Ugandan authorities must scrap the Computer Misuse Act 2011 which has been used systematically to harass, intimidate and stifle government critics like Stella Nyanzi.”

Background

Stella Nyanzi, formerly a research fellow at Makerere University’s Institute for Social Research, posted a birthday poem on Facebook for President Yoweri Museveni on 16 September 2018.

She wrote: “I wish the acidic pus flooding Esiteri’s (the president’s mother) vaginal canal had burn up your unborn foetus. Burn you up as badly as you have corroded all morality and professionalism out of our public institutions in Uganda.”

She was arrested on 2 November 2018 and presented to court in May 2019 to answer to charges of cyber harassment and offensive communication. She was acquitted of the latter charge.

Stella Nyanzi has been repeatedly harassed, arrested and detained, simply for speaking out against the government. In January 2019 she told a High Court judge that she suffered a miscarriage while at Luzira Prison. In February the University of Makerere terminated her employment having suspended in 2016.

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“Since you are business people, we must be talking about profits. When you talk of Uganda and Africa, you are talking about peace as an enabling environment; which we have. We have raw materials, and have a population of 40 million people that’s’ a market. And if we talk of integration we have a four tear market,” the President said at a meeting he held at his residence at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Dubai.

The President said the four tier market includes that of Uganda, East Africa, COMESA with a combined market of 600million people and the whole of Africa with a market of 1.3 billion people.

“In Africa, the demand is there and growing because we have been under-consuming while the rest of the world the demand is falling because they have been over consuming,” he said.

President Yoweri Museveni was yesterday meeting various UAE investors and CEOs of leading companies including America’s Business Council based in Dubai, Emerson with interest in Oil and Gas, Ernest and Young, Norton Rose Fulbright among others.

President Museveni encouraged them to invest in Uganda citing Peace and stability, infrastructure development especially electricity, roads and railway lines which he said it is a stimuli for investments.

“There are plenty of raw materials, minerals, tourism and so on so when you invest there you have access to all these” he added.

The President said investors enjoy a number of policy incentives such as tax holidays, VAT incentives among others.

“I don’t have to bother investors with taxes, what I want is for them to invest, use our raw materials, create jobs, add value and promote exports,” he said.

The business group expressed interests in investing in Uganda especially in areas of Oil and Gas, Agro processing, Tourism among others.

The President was accompanied by Uganda’s Energy Minister  Hon. Eng. Irene Muloni, that of Tourism Ephraim Kamuntu, State Minister for Investment and Privatization, Hon. Anite Evelyn and Ambassador Nimisha Madhvani among others.

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