Stella Nyanzi, a research fellow at Uganda’s Makerere University, charged with “cyber-harassment” and jailed for referring to President Yoweri Museveni as “a pair of buttocks” in one of her Facebook posts, returns to Buganda Road Court today for the mention of her case.
High on the agenda today is the government’s move to have her subjected to a mental status test.
In Uganda mental exams are usually reserved for suspects accused of crimes such as statutory rape.
Dr Stella Nyanzi has run to the Constitutional Court to block the impending examination.
Last month, Nyanzi’s lawyer, Nicholas Opiyo, said she told him two men presenting themsleves as doctors tried to trick her into taking a psychiatric test a day earlier. The two were from a government mental hospital, he claimed.
“They [the government] do not want to go to trial,” Opiyo said. “They just want to delegitimise Stella, characterise her as a fool, a mad person … and confine her to a mental hospital.”
