Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Emilian Kayima, has on Saturday morning confirmed the arrest of Dr Stella Nyanzi, a Makerere University research fellow who gained more popularity this year, after using offensive language on social media to criticise the NRM regime, more so Education Minister and First Lady Janet Museveni.
Dr Nyanzi first broke news of her arrest through her Facebook account Friday night, but most of her followers took long to believer it claiming that it didn’t sound like the “Stella Nyanzi” they know.
“Stop asking who’s posting and do something. Obviously, out of threats she was given, she gave out her password to someone close so that we can get information in case of anything.” One of her facebook followers commented.
That settled, the battle is of whether to come on ground and physically protest over her arrest or keep it to social media till her return.
Spokesperson, Emilian Kayima has till now not specified where the educationalist is being held however, confirmed that she was arrested over two counts of cyber harassment contrary to Section 24 of the Computer Misuse Act of 2011 and Offensive Communication Section 25 of the same law.
Dr Nyanzi is currently detained at Kira Police Station.
“Stella.. your supporters are on facebook. They like your posts, comment on them…but if anything happens to you outside of this forum..nobody will care. I hope you are aware of that. In fact we are liking and commenting on this while in our beds..telling you to fight on..haha..Ugandans.” One other fan commented.
“It’s even Friday some are commenting while in Casablanca sipping their red wine.” Another responded.
Dr Nyanzi’s facebook account has grown in following with a count of 136,004 people as of 8th April, 2017.
During one media interview, the mother of three said she reaches bigger audiences when she uses offensive/vulgar words as opposed to use of decent words.
Justifying her graphic language on social media, Dr Nyanzi said she is simply maximizing of her God given tongue to fight for what she believes is right.
“Anyone who knows my timeline on Facebook knows that when I write in the so-called clean language, my likes and shares are very small. When I write using graphic language, which I have no problem with because I never created these words; I get hundreds of likes, comments and shares. A language like Luganda is over 1,000 years old and the English language is even older; so, I didn’t create these words but I found them; let’s use them.” She said.
