Ugandan Activist Stella Nyanzi to be Released from Prison

Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi is set to be released from prison after winning her court appeal.

Last year, Nyanzi was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the "cyber harassment" of President Yoweri Museveni after writing a poem about his mother's vagina.

Nyanzi's arrest in 2019 followed shortly after a poem she wrote on FaceBook which read: "I wish the acidic pus flooding Esiteri's (the president's mother) vaginal canal had burn up your unborn fetus. Burn you up as badly as you have corroded all morality and professionalism out of our public institutions in Uganda."

After spending more than a year behind bars, Nyanzi remains committed to using what she terms "radical rudeness". In fact, she even went as far as saying that she would continue to speak against dictators in the "language of the vagina" prior to her sentencing last year.

During her time in Luzira Maximum Security Prison, Nyanzi was awarded the PEN Prize for Freedom of Expression. According to the director of PEN International, Carles Torner, her unfiltered outspokenness around the issues facing her country is what earned her the award.

In an acceptance speech written by Nyanzi for the awards ceremony which took place in The Hague, Netherlands, she said, "Unlawful laws are used in unjust courts to punish citizens whose only crime is exercising their constitutional freedom to write boldly about the dictatorship." She went on to add, "My custodial sentence in a maximum security prison highlights how fearful this dictator and his cronies are of writers. Isn't the pen, indeed, mightier than the sword?"

Members of the media as well as public figures and activists including the likes of Nyanzi and Bobi Wine, continue to be the targets of President Museveni and his crackdown on political dissent.

Activists, allies and feminists alike are celebrating Nyanzi's release on social media. Take a look at some of their responses below: