By Drew Dembe
Stella has been found. She was abducted by the police on a Friday and held away from her family and lawyers. She was denied Police bond despite having previously responded to police summons and voluntarily submitted herself to police interrogations! Stella is the mother of three young children who are dependent on her and their sole caregiver and breadwinner being a single mother!
This was a deliberate attempt to manipulate the law so that she could be imprisoned illegally over the weekend without being produced in court within 48 hours as the law demands. Expect them to try and manipulate bail laws on Monday as they always do with political prisoners which she is.
The charges against Nyanzi Stella are interesting and at least two unconstitutional!
1. Abuse of the person of the president.
2. Abuse of the person of the first lady.
3. Appeal to the public to collect funds for pads without registration contrary to section 2, 4 and 9 of the Public Collections Act.
The charges were read to her and she chose to remain silent as she should.
I find the charges interesting because number one and two are already dealt with by the anti sedition act which the supreme court already ruled unconstitutional in mwenda versus the state though am sure Mwenda will now come out to eat his own words forgetting that the case was about his right too offend the president without censure! If its not illegal to offend the President how can it be illegal to offend the first lady who in this case is also the line Minister on the pads issue and directly answerable for the state and President reneging on his campaign promise to which Stella Nyanzi is holding them accountable.
The same couple that duped people to vote for them pin the basis of fraudulent campaign promises are now offended that someone got angry and called them out on their lies! The wife lied that the state had no money for pads a week after the president publicly handed out 6 billion to 42 people in the revenue and finance ministry #URA_MAFIA for doing nothing on top of paying 10 million USD to UK lawyers for settling a case that was already won and losing half of the taxpayers capital gains dues! The money received is itself missing!
Number three is dealt with by precedent.
Numerous public collections happen everyday mostly to cover for the incompetence of an immoral government that collects taxes but obscenely fails to deliver services.
The issue of pads was declared an emergency by the president himself when he made it an election promise and promised free pads.
The issue did not go away because he reneged on his promise. Stella Nyanzi did his and his wife’s job by showing the community an alternate way. The community responded. Someone tell MTN they just committed 5 billion to any illegal Public collection to fund illegal menstrual sanitation pads!
The same state is always demanding that people fill the gap for its incompetence while they continue to steal money but are now saying its illegal. The sane state that licenses thieves and charlatans in churches and casinos as well as betting and gambling allowing then to exploit the people!
All those wedding, ordination, funeral, sick person fundraising, church collections are apparently illegal.
The president who has made a career of begging and made it a national pastime, making numerous foreign begging trips and turning ugandans into beggars dependent on handouts, does not like others begging to cover for him!
Nyanzi begged for money to cover for him and wife’s his failures and now they are offended!
This is a political witch hunt and misuse of state resources by a police state that should be out there looking for andrrew kaweesis murderers and those of 6500 other unsolved murders!
Stella is prisoner of conscience and a political prisoner!
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“Journalist Andrew Mwenda made several comments critical of the President and the government of Uganda on his live radio talk show. The state charged him with the crime of sedition, pursuant to sections 39 and 40 of the Penal Code, because his remarks were made with the intention to bring into hatred and contempt against the President, government, and Constitution. The Constitutional Court declared null and void the sedition provisions from the Penal Code because they were in contravention with the enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression.”
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